Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna marianna) reports that Tio Fun Taqueria in North Nashville became a makeshift call center Monday afternoon for people contacting their representatives on behalf of Estefany Rodriguez Florez, a local reporter detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE arrested Rodriguez last week while she was driving a car marked with her Spanish-language outlet, Nashville Noticias. Her attorneys allege that ICE did not produce a warrant when they arrested Rodriguez, who claimed political asylum in the U.S. because she received death threats for reporting in Colombia.
ICE officials say that they did have a warrant, although evidence of one submitted to the court was partially blank and missing her alien number.
A federal judge has set a Thursday deadline for ICE to submit written justification for the arrest.
Rodriguez had been reporting on immigration enforcement efforts in Nashville. Her colleagues at Nashville Noticias joined community members Monday to advocate for her release.
Photo 1: Courtesy of Nashville Noticias
Photo 2: Marianna Bacallao / WPLN
As immigration enforcement in Tennessee faces increased scrutiny, state lawmakers want to further limit what records of ICE operations are open to the public.
As Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna) reports, the Tennessee Senate approved a measure that would make confidential the names and addresses of officers involved in immigration enforcement — and shield any documents related to future operations from public records requests. If a state employee releases that information, they could be charged with a felony under the proposal.
Follow along for more and tap link in bio for full news coverage on our site.
There’s a good chance that you already know Nashville is the radio capital for country music. That’s what gets the most attention, but it’s not the whole story.
Contemporary Christian radio and hip-hop and R&B radio have their own Nashville presence, and comparing them side by side, like I’ve done in some of my recent research, is telling.
Welcome to Key Changes, created by our Senior Music Writer Jewly Hight. This is an invitation to join Jewly as she flips through her reporter’s notebook every two weeks— on air, online and in social media videos — and shares with you how she`s making sense of what’s happening in the rapidly changing music landscape.
Follow along for more, and tap link in bio to see her full story on our site.
Unearthed video footage and a documentary changed our Music and Culture reporter Justin Barney`s mind about Elvis. He asserts now that Elvis` best years are the Las Vegas years.
Baz Luhrmann unearthed new footage of Elvis (from a salt mine) and created "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert" which captures Elvis as he goes from innovator to icon.
Follow for more music and culture stories. Tap link in the bio to get more of our ongoing news coverage.
Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that he was removing her from her position, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivered a keynote speech at a Nashville hotel on Thursday.
WPLN’s Marianna Bacallao (@ba_marianna) reports Noem still touted the president’s mass deportations efforts and rallied against “sanctuary cities” in her address to law enforcement.
Follow along for more and tap link in bio for website stories and to subscribe to our NashVillager newsletter for news stories and ticket giveaways delivered to your inbox 5 days a week.
"I know it`s probably mundane, but they are working hard to make it just blend in with nature and yet there are stairs, air ducts and drainage pipe in the stone wall." Sonia Fernandez LeBlanc wanted to know more: What`s up with the grass-covered mound (or building?) at the corner of Thompson Lane and Vultee Boulevard near Nashville`s airport.
She turned to Curious Nashville for answers.
"I have driven this route for decades and just noticed that it was something more than a hill in the past seven or eight years. I can`t be alone in wondering!"
Blake Farmer met her at the myesterious mound and invited a Metro agency to answer her curious question.
Follow along for more curiosities and tap link in bio to subscribe to the Curious Nashville podcast.
“We treat amnesia as a disease,” Williams said. “The same is true for people, communities, neighborhoods, cities, and states. If we don’t have a memory of past events, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with us. We are not a properly functioning entity.”
Marginalized voices will be amplified by the new official historian of Davidson County. The Metro Council recently named TSU history professor Learotha Williams to the role.
Williams wants to boost the history of the city`s Latino and Muslim communities, and to investigate little-known aspects of local Civil Rights history.
“The role of a historian, first and foremost, is to ask questions, to mine the sources, and then to offer up what this means with the understanding that we sometimes might miss the mark. But also to cultivate an appreciation for the past ... something that is instructive, affirming, inspiring, but also something that challenges us, that critiques us, that pushes us to do better.”
Williams will serve for five years.
Follow along for more updates and tap link in bio for website updates.
Photo 1: Tony Gonzalez / WPLN
Photo 2: Andrea Tudhope / WPLN
Photo 3: Mack Linebaugh
Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia argue that the government’s case is retaliation after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador gained national attention. In a Nashville courthouse, they asked the judge to drop the human smuggling charges against the Maryland man.
Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna) reports that the defense focused their questioning on why the U.S. Justice Department considered a 2 ½ -year-old traffic stop in Tennessee a “top priority.”
The DOJ did not begin investigating Abrego Garcia until after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to return him to the U.S. In court, they testified that the high-profile nature of the case made it a “top priority” within the department.
Although state troopers alerted the FBI that Abrego Garcia was potentially transporting people without legal status during that 2022 traffic stop, top officials testified that they only learned of the stop from media reports after his deportation.
A ruling isn`t expected until April at the earliest.
Follow along and tap link in bio for more of our news coverage.
Curious Nashville Returns!
Back by popular demand, the WPLN fan favorite series Curious Nashville is here to investigate oddities, share local history, tell stories of interesting people, and explain how local institutions operate.
You ask the questions, and we answer.
More Headlines
NashVillager Podcast: Adopt-A-Highway
Key Changes: In Nashville radio, Contemporary Christian music, R&B, and hip-hop hold very different places
NashVillager Podcast: Underground taxis, driverless taxis or the bus
Kristi Noem ousted by Trump minutes before Nashville speech
Tennessee lawmakers soften measure that sought to keep undocumented students out of school
As Nashville businesses decry rising tax bills, lawmakers consider a cap on increases
WPLN Originals
Topics
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM
