Vanished in ICE custody: Palestinian hospitalised, family fears for Leqaa Kordia’s Life

The family and legal team of Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian resident of Paterson, New Jersey, are demanding urgent answers regarding her health and whereabouts following a medical emergency that led to her hospitalisation after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As of Sunday evening, her location remains unconfirmed, and her condition unknown.

Kordia reportedly suffered a serious medical episode on 6 February at the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. A former detainee who witnessed the incident stated that she had fallen, hit her head and experienced a seizure. 

The legal team representing Kordia has not been informed of her condition or the hospital she was taken to, even after contacting at least 16 medical facilities across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. ICE has confirmed that Kordia was hospitalised but refused to disclose further details.

Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman and longtime US resident, was detained on 13 March, 2025, after voluntarily attending a routine meeting requested by ICE in Newark, New Jersey. She had complied with all immigration proceedings and was not in violation of any terms. Instead of being allowed to return home, she was taken into custody and transferred over 1,500 miles away to a detention centre in Texas.

ICE arrested Kordia shortly after her participation in a peaceful campus protest at Columbia University in 2024 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Although Kordia was briefly arrested at the protest, she was released the next day and all charges were dropped. She has been the only individual still in detention in relation to those demonstrations.

Kordia arrived in the US in 2016 on a tourist visa and later switched to a student visa while applying for permanent residency through her US citizen mother. A paperwork error reportedly caused her visa to lapse in 2022. Her lawyers say that although an immigration judge twice ruled for her release, ICE has continued to detain her using “automatic stays”—a controversial mechanism that allows the agency to block court-ordered releases without immediate judicial review.

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Describing the dehumanising conditions inside Prairieland Detention Center, Kordia has said that she is forced to sleep on bare floors in overcrowded cells, the lack of halal food, and being surrounded by cockroaches. 

The case has prompted outrage among human rights groups and the Palestinian American community. A petition launched to demand her release and transparency regarding her medical care has garnered growing support. 

Kordia’s detention comes amid a broader crackdown targeting pro-Palestinian voices. In October, Sami Hamdi—a prominent political commentator and managing director of the London-based think tank The International Interest—was detained by ICE at San Francisco International Airport after speaking at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) event. Hamdi was released following an international campaign, with critics describing his arrest as a sign that the US is “heading towards fascist dictatorship”.

A similar campaign is now underway for the release of Kordia, as her family and legal team continue to demand urgent answers about her health and whereabouts.

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