Last protester after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released : NPR

Leqaa Kordia, left, hugs friends, family and supporters after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026.

Tony Gutiérrez/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Tony Gutiérrez/AP

ALVARADO, Texas — A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention following the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses was released Monday after a year in detention.

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old West Banker who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been detained in a U.S. immigrant detention center in Texas since last March. His detention was linked, in part, to his participation in a protest in front of Columbia University in 2024.

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

An immigration judge had ordered his release on bail three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was released Monday on $100,000 bail after pleading no contest to the third.

Kordia said she can’t wait to come home and hug her mother “so tight.” But she also said she would continue to fight on behalf of those still held at the detention center.

“There’s a lot of injustice in this place,” she said. “There are a lot of people who shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Kordia was among several people arrested last year after the Trump administration began using its immigration enforcement powers against noncitizens who had criticized or protested Israeli military actions in Gaza, as well as against many students and academics at U.S. universities.

Among them was Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student involved in the campus protests. He spent three months in detention at a Louisiana immigration prison before being released. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student who co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war, was detained for six weeks.

Others didn’t fight to stay: A doctoral student from Colombia fled the United States after her visa was revoked and immigration agents showed up at her university apartment.

The arrests of activists like Khalil have drawn condemnation from elected officials and activists. But Kordia was not a student or part of a group that could have been supportive, so her case remained largely out of the public eye while her detention continued.

Kordia said she joined a protest in 2024 outside Columbia University after Israel killed dozens of her relatives in Gaza, where she has deep personal ties. Around a hundred people were arrested by municipal police during this demonstration, but the charges against her were dropped and sealed. Information about his arrest was later relayed to the Trump administration by the New York City Police Department, which said it was informed 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 immediately arrested and flown to the Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas.

Federal officials accused Kordia of overstaying her visa while examining payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was intended to help family members who suffered during the war.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, previously criticized Kordia for what she said was “financial support for individuals living in countries hostile to the United States.”

The department said in an email Monday evening: “The facts of this case have not changed: Leqaa Kordia is in the country illegally after violating the terms of his visa.”

“The Trump Administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and deportation of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” the statement read.

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 passing out and hitting her head in a private detention center.

At a hearing Friday, Kordia’s lawyers said she suffered from a neurological problem that worsened while in custody, putting her at high risk of seizures. They reiterated that she could stay with U.S. citizen family members and was not a flight risk.

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 all of this,” Naslow said.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on X that he requested his release during his meeting with President Donald Trump last month.

“I am grateful that Leqaa was released tonight from ICE custody after more than a year in detention for defending Palestinian rights,” Mamdani said.