Armed agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Colombian journalist Estefany Rodríguez, who worked for Nashville Noticias and Univision 42, despite being married to a U.S. citizen, her husband and local media reported on Friday. Officers in several vehicles detained Rodríguez on Wednesday as she was traveling in her car with the Nashville Noticias logo, alongside her husband, Alejandro Medina III, according to the statement from the Spanish-language media outlet in the southern state of Tennessee, where it has over 800,000 followers on Facebook. Her husband denounced that his wife «is being detained after being arrested by eight armed agents,» who alleged that the woman had to appear for two appointments, but one of the summonses was not in the system, while the winter storm that hit the U.S. this winter prevented the other, according to Medina III. Therefore, the Colombian's legal defense filed a petition with the Federal Court arguing that her detention violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution for having been carried out without an arrest warrant and without evidence that she represented a flight risk, as argued by ICE. «At this moment, I ask for prayers for my wife and our family, and I thank you, the community, for the support you give us as we handle this injustice that results from a fragmented system,» stated her husband, who opened a petition on Go Fund Me to raise funds for her defense. Rodríguez, who is now in a detention center, has a degree in journalism from Colombia, where she worked for years in various media before joining Nashville Noticias in 2022 to cover immigration, social, health, and police topics. The outlet describes her as a communicator «known in the community for telling stories, for her empathy, and for the love she has for her family and her 8-year-old daughter.» Rodríguez's arrest occurred after the deportation in October of Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, detained in June 2025 in Georgia while covering a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and immigration raids despite identifying himself as press. The Inter American Press Society (SIP) in its latest semi-annual report on the U.S. documented that, «in his second term as president, Donald Trump has undertaken direct attacks on the national media, pushing an avalanche of lawsuits and rhetorical attacks, and emboldening federal agencies».
