ALVARADO, Texas — Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, was released Monday after spending a year in immigration custody following the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Kordia had been held at the Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas, since last March. She left the facility smiling and emotional, telling reporters, “I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year.” She said she planned to return home to hug her mother and pledged to continue advocating for other detainees. “There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she said.
An immigration judge ordered Kordia’s release on bond three times. The government appealed the first two orders but did not challenge the third. She was freed on a $100,000 bond.
Federal officials have alleged Kordia overstayed her visa and questioned payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East; the Department of Homeland Security has said she remained in the country illegally and that enforcement would continue. Kordia has said the transfers were intended to help family members suffering during the war in Gaza. An immigration judge found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was truthful about the payments.
Kordia was among several noncitizens detained after the administration began using immigration enforcement against critics of or protesters over Israel’s military actions. 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. A Columbia doctoral student also had a visa revoked and left the U.S. after immigration agents went to her university apartment.
Kordia says she participated in a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University after scores of her relatives were killed in Gaza. About 100 people were arrested at that protest; the charges against her were dismissed and sealed, but arrest records were 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 taken into custody 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 hospitalized for three days after experiencing a seizure following a fainting spell in the privately run detention facility. At a hearing, her attorneys said she has a neurological condition that worsened in custody and that she posed no flight risk because she can stay with U.S. citizen family members. Immigration Judge Tara Naslow agreed, citing extensive evidence presented on Kordia’s behalf and limited information from the government.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he raised Kordia’s case with President Trump last month and expressed gratitude for her release on X.