Last protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released

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ALVARADO, Texas (AP) — A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration's 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses was freed Monday after a year in custody.

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked, in part, to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” Kordia, with a beaming smile, told reporters after emerging from the detention center.

An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.

Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard.” But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention center.

“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.”

Kordia was among a number of people arrested last year 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.

Among them was Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student involved in campus protests. He spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail before being freed. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student who co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war, was detained for six weeks.

Others did not fight to stay — one Columbia doctoral student fled the U.S. after her visa was revoked and immigration agents showed up at her university apartment.

Arrests of activists like Khalil drew condemnation from elected officials and advocates. But Kordia was not a student or part of a group that might have provided support, so her case remained largely out of the public eye while her detention carried on.

Kordia said she joined a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. She was around 100 people arrested by city police at that protest, but the charges against her were dismissed and sealed. Information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City Police Department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.

Kordia was arrested during a March 13, 2025, check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey. She was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas.

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.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, had previously criticized Kordia for what she said was "providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.” A message seeking comment was sent to the department Monday evening.

An immigration judge found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments.

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, Kordia’s attorneys said she had a neurological condition that had worsened while in custody, putting her at an elevated risk of seizure. They reiterated that she could stay with U.S. citizen family members and did not pose a flight risk.

The immigration judge, Tara Naslow, agreed.

“I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this,” Naslow said.

An attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, Anastasia Norcross, said the government opposed the release of Kordia, regardless of the bond. She did not say at the time whether it would appeal for a third time.

Kordia's advocates cheered her release.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he asked for her release when he met with President Donald Trump last month

Texas Civil Rights Project Travis Fife said they were celebrating but still had work to do.

“Leqaa going home today is the bare minimum,” Fife said in a prepared statement. "We must continue to assert the fundamental First Amendment principle that the government cannot abuse power to punish people for using their voice.”

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Offenhartz reported from New York.