According to its masthead, “The Nashville Banner” is a locally owned, community-supported civic news organization that provides non-partisan journalism that empowers the people of Nashville to make informed decisions. In partnership with another local independent journo, the “Nashville Noticias,” it published a story in May about Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus, a pregnant Guatemalan illegal immigrant who was arrested by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) in Tennessee, then sent to an ICE facility in Louisiana.
According to the publication, because she did not receive proper prenatal care while incarcerated, Monterroso-Lemus suffered a miscarriage.
On Mother’s Day this year, Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus found herself alone in Guatemala, a country she hadn’t called home in more than a decade. At 38, the once-vibrant, curly-haired woman seemed withered and shaken.
After she was arrested by ICE in Lenoir City, she ended up at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, where she experienced the unimaginable. After pleading for medical help for days, she lost her mid-term pregnancy.
“I had him inside here for three days, in this Louisiana facility, my baby dead in my stomach, inside my stomach for three days, dead,” she said.
Nashville’s Mayor Freddie O’Connell (no relation, thank God) has shown his disdain for ICE enforcement, encouraging that agents be doxxed. So, because it is Tennessee and is riddled with TDS and ICE hatred, the story has gone viral, garnering the attention of legacy media outlets like Rolling Stone and The International Business Times UK. According to a GoFundMe, her boyfriend, Gary Bivens, is raising money for medical help for her as well as transportation expenses. The account is over $6,000 dollars as of this writing.
This all went down at the end of April. Now, over a month later, WA Rep. Jamila Jayapal has chosen to promote the story on her X account to loudly beat her anti-ICE, pro-illegal drum.
A pregnant woman lost her baby after ICE refused to give her prenatal care.
She begged for help and was denied. She was fed food full of cockroaches. She was forced to sleep on the floor.
This is absolutely disgusting and we should all be outraged. https://t.co/AtYPFMfZ6z
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) June 24, 2025
“The Nashville Banner” article tied Monterroso-Lemus’s alleged abuse to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Nashville. This is our shocked face.
Monterroso-Lemus’s experience in detention comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants and the mounting claims of abuse and discrimination tied to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests across the country. In Nashville, ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol officials recently made 588 traffic stops in predominantly Latino neighborhoods as part of a joint operation that led to the arrests of 196 undocumented residents. Despite claims that ICE was only targeting criminals, fewer than half had prior criminal records. As the Banner reported, in the overnight operation between May 3 and 4, THP made more than twice as many traffic stops as Metro Nashville police did during both days combined,