Last detainee from Trump’s 2025 Gaza war protest crackdown freed after a year

Leqaa Kordia, 33, walked out of the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas on Monday with a smile, raising both hands as she greeted supporters who had gathered to see her. Her friends and family members embraced her while others filmed the reunion.

Kordia was the last person still detained in the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses. She was released on Monday after what she says was a difficult year in custody.

While in detention, Kordia endured filthy, inhumane conditions, and had her religious liberties violated, says Sarah Sherman-Stokes, one of her lawyers. In the end, she wasn’t charged with any crime.

Still, Kordia says her newfound freedom means little to her until “everybody is free.”

“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she told reporters after emerging from the detention centre, located south of Dallas. “There are a lot of people that shouldn’t be here in the first place. We’re going to keep fighting for them.”

Allegedly punished for speaking out

The Palestinian woman, originally from the West Bank, has lived in New Jersey since 2016, first on a visitor visa, then a student visa, her lawyer said. She had been taken into detention in part over her participation in the Gaza war protests at Columbia University. She was detained during an immigration check-in on March 13, 2025, and was transferred to the detention centre in Dallas.

U.S. officials said she overstayed her visa and questioned money she had sent back to relatives in Gaza — funds, Kordia said, that were meant to help family affected by the war there.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security alleged she was providing financial support to “individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”

An immigration judge ordered her release three times. After challenging the first two rulings, the government did not contest the third, and she was freed on a $100,000 US bond.

Sherman-Stokes says Kordia came to the U.S. in 2016 to reunite with her mother, an American citizen. She was on the path to getting a green card, but fell out of status after receiving incorrect legal advice, her lawyer says, but Kordia has since taken steps to resolve it. She has been granted withholding of removal, a form of protection for an individual fearing persecution in their native country.

Sherman-Stokes says the U.S. government has appealed the decision and the case is ongoing. She argues Kordia was targeted for her pro-Palestinian advocacy.

“This administration is determined to punish people who speak out in support of Palestine … punish people who call for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide that took nearly 200 of Leqaa’s family members,” she said.

“It seems like they will stop at nothing, even when they … didn’t have a shred of evidence in this case.”

‘Overwhelming evidence’

Last month, while at the detention centre, Kordia was hospitalized, her lawyer says, after experiencing a fall, head injury, fainting spells and a seizure. Sherman-Stokes alleges Kordia had been chained to the hospital bed, denied access to legal services and held in filthy, inhumane conditions at the detention facility. 

“Women [slept] on the floor,” said Sherman-Stokes. “Leqaa did not have access to sufficient food — she was routinely denied access to halal food despite her repeated requests; her religious liberties were violated.”

Sherman-Stokes says doctors told Kordia the seizure was likely the result of an underlying neurological condition brought on by stress and lack of sleep.

At a hearing on Friday, the immigration judge, Tara Naslow, found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the overseas payments, according to The Associated Press. Naslow agreed with Kordia’s attorneys that her detention increased her risk of seizures, and found that she did not pose a flight risk and could stay with her U.S. citizen family.

“I’ve heard testimony,” said Naslow. “I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent and very little evidence by the government in any of this.”

DHS doubles down

In an email Monday night to The Associated Press, however, the DHS doubled down. “The facts of this case have not changed: Leqaa Kordia is in the country illegally after violating the terms of her 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 removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”

Despite her release on bond, Kordia has not yet been able to return to her family in Paterson, New Jersey, her lawyer said. She is staying with a friend in Texas because she cannot fly without a government-issued ID.

“So we’re waiting for the government to issue that to her,” said Sherman-Stokes. “This is a common hurdle for people who are released from custody … but we’re working on that and hope that will be resolved as soon as possible so that she can reunite with her family in New Jersey in time for Eid.”