NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked Trump to release a pro-Palestinian protester from custody. Then she was set free
A Palestinian protester was let out of an immigration detention center in Texas on Monday, marking the release of the final known individual arrested as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free!” Leqaa Kordia, told reporters outside the Prairieland Detention Center.
“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she added. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.”
The 33-year-old was arrested last March during a check-in with immigration officials.
Kordia claims she was taken in because she participated in a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University against the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed scores of her relatives.
“In my meeting with President Trump last month, we discussed ICE’s actions at Columbia University,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote in a post on X on Monday. “I asked that the federal government release Leqaa Kordia and drop the cases against four others. I am grateful that Leqaa has been released this evening from ICE custody after more than a year in detention for speaking up for Palestinian rights.”
Kordia was granted bond on March 13, and the Department of Homeland Security declined to challenge the decision, as it had on two prior occasions.
The Independent has contacted the White House and ICE for comment.
“The facts of this case have not changed: Leqaa Kordia is in the country illegally after violating the terms of her visa,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Washington Post after Kordia’s release.
Kordia arrived in the U.S. in 2016 on a tourist visa, joining her mother, a U.S. citizen, in Paterson, New Jersey. She then transitioned to a student visa and was approved for a green card in 2021. Following erroneous advice from a teacher, she let her student visa expire, according to her attorneys.
DHS alleges Kordia overstayed her student visa, which it says was terminated in 2022 for lack of attendance.
Supporters and human rights activists cheered Kordia’s release, arguing she had been wrongly detained for speaking out on her views alongside scores of others with ties to the pro-Palestinian movement, including the high-profile arrest of Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil.
“After spending a harrowing year in ICE custody, Leqaa can return to New Jersey to reunite with her family and loved ones – just in time for the end of Ramadan and start of Eid celebrations,” Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.
“But to be clear, Leqaa should not have been detained in the first place,” he added. “Today is a powerful reminder that freedom of expression and peaceful protest are human rights – entitled to all.”
