Claudia Rodriguez Caglianone, known to her friends and family as “CC”, was about to board a flight from Fort Lauderdale to North Carolina to visit friends and watch the World Cup Final with them.
After she made it through security, the former collegiate soccer captain and Venezuelan immigrant was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and has been in detention centers in Miramar and Pompano Beach ever since, according to her family.
“When the game was happening, the entire family got together and we were just crying, because usually we’d get together to watch it with her,” said Gabe Dominguez, Rodriguez's cousin.
On Thursday afternoon, more than two dozen family members and former soccer teammates of Rodriguez gathered outside the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach to call attention to her case in hopes of getting her released from federal detention.
Also there was Rep. Debbie Wasseman Schultz, D-Weston, who conducted an unannounced visit to the private facility contracted by ICE to house suspected undocumented immigrants.
Rodriguez, who is 28, arrived in the United States in 2017 from Venezuela. She applied for asylum less than six months later and — nine years later — her case remains pending in immigration court.
In 2023, she was granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS), but that protection ended for most Venezuelan TPS holders last October.
In the time she’s been in the United States, Rodriguez graduated from St. Thomas University with a bachelors and masters degree, and was a key member of the soccer team, serving as the team captain.
“ She's just a great leader. She's always with the team. She's got a great personality. She motivates people. She was actually injured her last season and wasn't able to play, but she was still there to support her team and push us to be the best we can be,” said Michelle Smith, her former coach at St. Thomas University.
This month, after being detained, Rodriguez was sent to the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Office in Miramar, which has recently turned into a makeshift immigrant detention center.
Wasserman Schultz, who recently made an unannounced visit to the facility, said she was told that no detainee was kept there for more than 72 hours.
Rodriguez, according to her family, was there for eight days. In that time she was in the same clothes that were never cleaned, did not shower and slept on the floor with no padding. Her family said she’s lost 15 pounds since being detained.
“ It's heartbreaking... Seeing my grandmother, who's 94 years old, who also had to come over from Venezuela, and seeing her reaction to this thing and seeing her inability to process and understand why somebody like her granddaughter, who's done so much for her family, for her community, for all these different people, it makes no sense,” said Dominguez.
READ MORE: Immigrant advocates, detainee families rally at Miramar ICE Office over surge in immigration arrests
Rodriguez was later transferred to the Broward Transitional Center.
On Thursday, ICE officials barred Wasserman Schultz from seeing Rodriguez in person during the surprise visit despite having a signed privacy release from her family.
“ That's all that's required for members of Congress to be able to communicate with constituents,” Wasserman Schultz said. “ICE is violating federal law.”
ICE claims that to see Rodriguez, the congresswoman would have to fill out a form and notify the facility 24 hours in advance — which Wasserman Schultz says defeats the purpose of a surprise inspection. She said she was able to speak to Rodriguez via phone.
“ I was pleasantly surprised that this transition facility has the cleanliness that one would hope for. It had room in the sleeping quarters. It had recreational facilities that were real, not just a tent over over a piece of concrete. It had access to a library,” Wasserman Schultz said.
She said the better conditions were due to the facility being used for “low-level” offenders, but she said the detainees' low level status — like Rodriguez — was the very reason they should all be released.
“ The detainees that are housed here have either no criminal history or very low-level history, like traffic stops and things that do not involve significant criminal activity,” she said. “ There are 671 people in this facility that shouldn't be here, that should not have been detained in the first place, and that the policy of the Trump administration that is putting them here is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump has embarked on an aggressive immigration enforcement strategy — partnering with local law enforcement officers in partnership with ICE agents — to pursue undocumented immigrants and deport them from the country.
Dominguez said the administration is painting all immigrants, including his cousin, as criminals.
“ We hear these words like ‘detainee’ and people picture somebody that they should be afraid of," he told WLRN. "The reality is much more complicated than the narrative that's painted. A lot of these people that are being detained unlawfully are people that are a pillar of the community, and that's what you're seeing here today.”
ICE officials did not immediately respond to questions from WLRN about Rodriguez's detention.
