About Leqaa Kordia

Leqaa Kordia was abducted and imprisoned by ICE for over 8 months as of December 2025. She is locked away in a Texas immigration detention center — 1,500 miles from her home in New Jersey. She was targeted for allegedly being arrested outside of Columbia University during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in April 2024 after losing many extended family members in the US-Backed, Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Leqaa is caregiver to her U.S. citizen mother, a beloved member of her community in Paterson, NJ, and a young woman full of dreams. She longs to open a cafe one day, to paint, to cook for her neighbors again. Instead, she is sleeping on concrete floors, denied halal food and the ability to properly practice her faith, and punished with months of isolation in Prairieland Detention Facility.

Government Overreach

Twice now, an immigration judge has ordered Leqaa's release on bond. And twice, the government has overruled its own judges, exploiting a rarely used provision to keep her confined. DHS and ICE have provided no evidence, no justification — only political punishment.

This is not about safety or law. It is about silencing a Palestinian woman who dared to protest. Her detention is devastating her family. Her mother wakes each day in grief and fear, waiting for her daughter's return. Her friends and community are fighting to keep her name alive in the face of government attempts to erase it.