Calls mount for release of Palestinian protester held by ICE for nearly a year

Leqaa Kordia was taken into custody last March, nearly a year after being arrested at a protest at Columbia

Calls are mounting for the release of a Palestinian woman who has been held in immigration detention for nearly a year following her arrest at a pro-Palestine protest last year, with several elected officials weighing in after a medical emergency renewed attention to her case.

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old originally from the West Bank, was arrested in April 2024 at a protest against Israel's war in Gaza outside Columbia University. (She was not a student there.) The charges against her were dismissed the following day, but last March, nearly a year after the protest, she was taken into custody when she checked into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in New Jersey. She had a pending asylum application at the time, her attorney said.