ALVARADO, Texas — A Palestinian woman who was the last person remaining in immigration detention after the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism was freed Monday after a year behind bars.
Leqaa Kordia, 33, from the West Bank and a New Jersey resident since 2016, had been held at the Prairieland Detention Center south of Dallas since last March. Her detention was tied in part to her participation in a 2024 protest outside Columbia University.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” Kordia told reporters with a beaming smile as she left the detention center. She said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother, and vowed to continue advocating for others still detained. “There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she said. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.”
An immigration judge ordered her release on bond three times; the government challenged the first two rulings but did not appeal the third. Kordia was freed on $100,000 bond.
Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa and scrutinized payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was intended to help family suffering during the war in Gaza. The Department of Homeland Security previously criticized her for “providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.” and said in a statement Monday that she remained in the country illegally and the administration would continue enforcement. An immigration judge, however, said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was truthful about the payments.
Kordia was among several noncitizens arrested after the administration began using immigration enforcement against those who had criticized or protested Israel’s military actions, including students and scholars. Others affected included Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student who spent three months in a Louisiana immigration jail, and Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts student detained for six weeks after co-authoring an op‑ed critical of her university’s response. One Columbia doctoral student had her visa revoked and fled the U.S. after immigration agents arrived at her university apartment.
Kordia said she joined the Columbia demonstration after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza. About 100 people were arrested at that protest; the charges against her were dismissed and sealed, but arrest information was later provided to the Trump administration by the New York City Police Department, which said the records were sought as part of a money‑laundering probe.
She was arrested during a March 13, 2025, check‑in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey, detained immediately and flown to Texas. Kordia was recently hospitalized for three days following a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility. At a hearing Friday, her attorneys said she has a neurological condition that worsened in custody and that she posed no flight risk because she could stay with U.S. citizen family. Immigration Judge Tara Naslow agreed, noting extensive evidence presented by Kordia and little from the government.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he raised Kordia’s case with President Trump last month and on X expressed gratitude for her release.
