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 – less than a week after Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested – and she had been held more than 1,500 miles away from her home in Paterson, New Jersey, at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, ever since, according to her legal team.
An immigration judge ordered her release on bond 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 detention, according to her lawyers.
“We are overwhelmed with relief and gratitude at the release of our beloved Leqaa Kordia,” Hamzah Abushaban, Kordia’s cousin, said in a statement shared by her lawyers. “This past year has taken an unimaginable toll on Leqaa and our entire family.”
Kordia and her lawyers have said she was targeted after attending a protest “opposing military violence and supporting Palestinian rights” at Columbia University in New York, where she was arrested by 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 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.
Responding to Kordia’s release, a DHS spokesperson told CNN: “The facts of this case have not changed: Leqaa Kordia is in the country illegally after violating the terms of her visa.”
Her case has attracted the attention of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who said he discussed her case with President Donald Trump, and Amnesty International, which had called for her immediate release.
A wave of arrests
Born in East Jerusalem and raised mostly by her father in the West Bank city of Ramallah after her parents separated, Kordia first came to the United States in 2016 on a tourist visa to live with her mother, an American citizen, according to her lawyers and court filings. They lived in Paterson, which has one of the largest Palestinian American communities in the United States.
She later transitioned to an F-1 student visa, and in 2021, her family-based petition for a green card was approved, according to her court filings. But petition approval is just one part of the process for receiving a green card. “Acting on incorrect advice from a teacher and mentor that she trusted” and believing she had lawful status, she withdrew from school and from the F1 visa program in 2022, she said in her petition challenging her detention.
Kordia was arrested March 13 last year, when she arrived for a voluntary meeting with immigration officers, who served her a notice to appear in immigration court, according to her legal team’s court filings.
In the pre-Trump administration era, Kordia would have likely been released to fight her case from home, her attorneys and an immigration law expert not on her case told CNN. ICE categorized Kordia as low risk in its own assessment, her legal team said in a court filing. But deploying a strategy that has become more common in the president’s second term, DHS instead detained her and sent her to Texas.
Her arrest came less than a week after Khalil, a 31-year-old graduate student at Columbia University who had acted as a spokesperson for the university’s encampments, was detained by federal agents at his Morningside Heights student apartment on March 8, 2025.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free!” Kordia said, smiling, after her release, according to The Associated Press. “Finally, after one year.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
