Nearly seven months after the Trump administration cracked down on pro-Palestinian activists, the only one still jailed is breaking her silence, recounting how the suffering of family members in Gaza drove her to protest.
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, has been held in a U.S. immigration detention center since March. The experience has left her feeling powerless to assist family members caught in the war or to speak out on their behalf, she said.
“Most days I feel helpless,” Kordia, 32, said recently. “I want to do something, but I can’t from here. I can’t do anything.”
Here are some takeaways from a recent interview with Kordia, the first since her arrest:
Motivated by the loss of family
Kordia said she was moved to protest because of deep personal ties to Gaza.
Before the war began, she said, daily life was filled by responsibilities as a server in a Middle Eastern restaurant in New Jersey and taking care of her half brother, who has autism. Those routines were upended in 2023 after Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Israel responded with a massive military campaign that Gaza health officials say has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians.
In calls with relatives in Gaza “they were telling me that ’We’re hungry. …We are scared. We’re cold. We don’t have anywhere to go,” Kordia said. “So my way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets.”
Unlike most others targeted
Many of the protesters pursued by the Trump administration were prominent activists. All of the others who were locked up have gained release.
Kordia languishes in detention, in part, because her story is different. When she joined demonstrations against Israel outside Columbia University, she wasn’t a student or part of a group that might have provided support. As the arrests of activists like Mahmoud Khalil drew condemnation from elected officials and advocates, Kordia’s case largely remained out of the public eye.
In the month since, she’s been trapped in a legal maze, with government lawyers contesting a judge’s decisions that she be released on bond. They say she has been in the country illegally since 2022 when she left school, surrendering her status as a student and invalidating her visa.
Surveillance, then arrest
Kordia said she had joined more than a dozen protests in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. In April 2024, she was arrested with 100 other protesters outside Columbia’s gates — charges quickly dismissed by prosecutors and sealed.
Soon after President Donald Trump took office, Department of Homeland Security officials began assembling dossiers on noncitizens who criticized Israel or protested the war. It’s since become clear that DHS obtained records of her brief arrest from the NYPD, saying the information was needed in a criminal money laundering investigation.
In March, immigration agents showed up at Kordia’s home and workplace, as well as her uncle’s house in Florida. “The experience was very confusing,” she said. “It was like: Why are you doing all this?”
At a March 13 meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, she was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas.
Kordia said she didn’t understand the reasons for her detention until a week or two later, when a television at the facility was tuned to news of protester arrests.
“I see my name, literally in big letters, on CNN and I was like, what’s going on?” she said.
Payments scrutinized
Administration officials touted Kordia’s arrest as part of the deportation effort against those who “actively participated in anti-American, pro-terrorist activities.” A DHS press release noted her arrest the previous year at a “pro-Hamas” demonstration, mistakenly labeling her as a Columbia student.
At a bond hearing weeks later, government attorneys argued for Kordia’s continued detention, pointing to subpoenaed records showing she had sent “large amounts of money to Palestine and Jordan.”
Kordia said she and her mother had sent the money, totaling $16,900 over eight years, to relatives.
“To hear the government accusing them of being terrorists and accusing you of sending money to terrorists, this is heartbreaking,” Kordia said.
An immigration judge, examining transaction records and statements from relatives, found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments.
But the government has mounted an unusual appeal of that ruling, leaving her detained more than 200 days after her arrest.
