I’m writing today to ask you to take immediate action to demand the release of Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian political prisoner in ICE custody. Her health has reached a critical state because of the conditions she is enduring in detention. 

After nearly a year in ICE detention for speaking out against genocide, Leqaa was hospitalized for 72 hours after having a seizure last Friday.Since she has been in custody, she has suffered from poor nutrition and extreme stress which have caused dizziness, fainting, and weakness. 

Leqaa has now been discharged from the hospital, only to be returned to ICE detention and its abysmal conditions. Every moment of inaction increases the risk to her life, and urgent intervention is required now.

Last March, Leqaa, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman from New Jersey, was unlawfully detained by ICE after being targeted for her participation in protests near Columbia University to end the genocide in Gaza that has killed nearly 200 members of her family. Arrested just days after Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa is the last Columbia University protestor who is still in ICE custody. 

Despite ongoing pressure from elected officials, her family, attorneys, and even a federal immigration judge’s approval of her release, ICE has continued to detain Leqaa in the notorious Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas, 1,500 miles away from her family for 11 months. In the facility, she has been subjected to inhumane conditions and cruel treatment that have resulted in a severe decline in her health.

Leqaa’s life is in immediate risk, and we must do everything we can to demand justice. 

Members of Congress have the power to hold ICE to account, and must use their position to call for her release from detention. Every email and call makes a difference. 

Leqaa’s lawyers have been denied access to the facility where she is being held and prevented from contacting her as critical deadlines approach in her immigration case. The deliberate lack of transparency regarding her conditions and whereabouts during the three days of her hospitalization, combined with her prolonged detention, isolation, and political targeting, raise grave concerns for her safety.

As ICE continues to terrorize our communities, abduct our family and neighbors, and occupy our streets, it is our duty to fight back and use our power to exert pressure at every level to demand justice for people like Leqaa. 

Until we are all free,
Alia E.
Adalah Justice Project

More on Leqaa Kordia

• Why Has This Columbia University Protester Been in ICE Detention for Nearly a Year?, PREM THAKKER, ZETEO, FEB 10, 2026
• Columbia University protester returned to ICE custody after hospital discharge: Leqaa Kordia was discharged from the hospital on Monday, after receiving medical care over the weekend as a result of a “serious medical episode,” and was immediately returned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, Laila El-Haddad reports. El-Haddad said ICE blocked Kordia’s family and lawyers from contact with her for more than 72 hours and that relatives still do not know what occurred during her hospitalization. — Drop Site News, Feb 10, 2026
• Family says detained activist Leqaa Kordia’s location unknown after medical emergency in ICE custody: The family and legal team of Kordia, a Palestinian resident of Paterson, New Jersey, said ICE reported she had been hospitalized following a reported seizure and head injury at the Prairieland Detention Center in North Texas. As of Sunday, her whereabouts and condition remain unknown. Kordia has been held by immigration officials for nearly a year after being detained at a routine check-in. The arrest came after her participation in 2024 protests at Columbia University; despite an immigration judge twice ordering her release on bond, ICE has utilized “automatic stays” to keep her detained. — Drop Site News, Feb 9, 2026
• Leqaa Kordia: I’m the last Columbia protester still in ICE custody, USA Today, Jan 21, 2026