A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists was released on Monday after a year in custody.
Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the occupied West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a US immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Kordia was among roughly 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024.
An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday after it did not challenge the third.
She was recently hospitalised for three days following a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility.
Kordia said she joined the 2024 demonstration after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. “My way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets,” she told The Associated Press in October.
The charges against her for the protest were dismissed and sealed.
She was among a number of people arrested after the Trump administration began using its immigration enforcement powers on noncitizens who had criticized or protested Israel’s military actions in Gaza, many students and scholars at American universities.
Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa, while scrutinizing payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was meant to help family members suffering during the war.
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