Last protester in immigration detention after Trump's campus crackdown has been released
Source: AP
Updated 8:36 PM EDT, March 16, 2026
ALVARADO, Texas (AP) A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administrations 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses was freed Monday after a year in custody.
Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked, in part, to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024.
I dont know what to say. Im free! Im free! Finally, after one year, Kordia, with a beaming smile, told reporters after emerging from the detention center. An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.
Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother so hard. But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention center. There is a lot of injustice in this place, she said. There is a lot of people that shouldnt be here the first place.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/leqaa-kordia-ice-immigration-trump-ec045939c3c4f637a9612da0842fd4ee
An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.
Apparently DHS & DOJ "have bigger fish to fry" after ab excessive amount of Waste. Fraud. Abuse. of taxpayer money.