Palestinian protester held in immigration detention for over a year is released
By Zoe Sottile, CNN
(CNN) — Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman detained by immigration authorities for over a year after she was arrested at a protest at Columbia University amid Israel’s war in Gaza in 2024, has been released from custody, according to her legal team.
Kordia, who the Department of Homeland Security says was detained for overstaying her student visa, appears to be the last in a wave of students and academics still held by immigration authorities after being involved in protests or advocacy related to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, her lawyers say.
Immigration authorities detained the 33-year-old on March 13, 2025 – a week after Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested – and she has been held at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, ever since, according to her legal team.
An immigration judge ordered her release on bond on Friday, her lawyers said. It’s the third time a judge has ordered her released. In the previous instances, DHS ordered an automatic stay, keeping her in confinement, according to her lawyers.
She and her lawyers have said she was targeted after attending a protest at Columbia “opposing military violence and supporting Palestinian rights” where she was arrested by local police. All charges against her were dropped “in the interest of justice,” her lawyers said in a habeas corpus petition filed last year calling for her release.
Kordia said earlier this year “the only reason ICE targeted me in the first place is because I protested against the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza.” A White House spokesperson called the claims “categorically false” and said the administration “is enforcing federal immigration law.”
In a statement to CNN, DHS also claimed that Kordia was arrested by the New York Police Department in what it called her involvement in “pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University” – a protest characterization her attorneys refute – and said she “was also found to be providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”
Kordia’s lawyers said the protest at Columbia was “peaceful and nonviolent” and denied Kordia had supported Hamas.
Her lawyers say the financial support refers to payments she sent to Palestinian family members, including payments to family members who lost homes and businesses in Israeli airstrikes. DHS didn’t respond to questions about which nations are considered hostile to the US or whether those payments constitute a crime.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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