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Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March, was freed Monday after about a year in custody, the Associated Press reported. Kordia had been the last person still in immigration detention tied to what the Trump administration described in 2025 as a crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, according to the report.

After emerging from the detention center, Kordia told reporters, “I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” AP reported. She said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard,” and she also said she would continue pushing for people still being held at the detention facility.

The release came after an immigration judge ordered Kordia released on bond three times, AP reported. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third, according to the report.

Kordia described the situation she said she witnessed inside the detention system, telling reporters, “There is a lot of injustice in this place,” and that “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.” AP said she joined a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, and that she was among about 100 people arrested at the protest before the charges were dismissed and sealed.

The AP report said Kordia’s case later stayed out of the public eye in part because she was not a student and no group that might have organized support for her appeared to be involved. It also said her detention was linked in part to what the New York City Police Department provided to the Trump administration, after the department told officials it was seeking the records as part of a money laundering investigation.

Kordia was arrested during a March 13, 2025, ICE check-in with her in New Jersey, AP reported, and she was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Center south of Dallas. Federal officials have accused her of overstaying her visa and have scrutinized payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East, according to AP, which said Kordia told the court that the money was meant to help family members suffering during the war.

The report said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin had previously criticized Kordia, describing her as “providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.” In an email Monday night, the department said, “The facts of this case have not changed: Leqaa Kordia is in the country illegally after violating the terms of her visa,” and it added, “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,” AP reported.

AP said Kordia faced an immigration court assessment in which a judge found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments. In court, Kordia’s attorneys said she had a neurological condition that worsened while she was in custody, putting her at elevated risk of seizure, AP reported, and she had recently been hospitalized for three days after a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility.

At a Friday hearing, the judge, Tara Naslow, agreed with the defense’s position, AP reported. AP quoted Naslow as saying, “I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this.”

In a post on X, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he asked for Kordia’s release after meeting with President Donald Trump last month, AP reported. Mamdani wrote, “I am grateful that Leqaa has been released this evening from ICE custody after more than a year in detention for speaking up for Palestinian rights,” according to the report.

As part of the same enforcement push, AP said other people arrested last year in connection with campus protests were detained for varying periods, including Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, who spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail before being freed, and Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student, who was detained for six weeks. AP also reported that at least one Columbia doctoral student left the United States after her visa was revoked and immigration agents showed up at her apartment.

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