Palestinian woman released by ICE after year: “I’m not free until we all are”

Palestinian-American Leqaa Kordia has been released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being held in an ICE prison for a year. But she says she is not free. Not yet.

Kordia was one of around 100 victims arrested for peacefully protesting outside Columbia University against Israel’s genocide in Gaza in 2024. No one was charged. But ICE then imprisoned her in March 2025 on the ridiculous grounds that Homeland Security claimed she was “found to be providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”. She had sent money to relatives overseas to help support them.

Kordia was hospitalised after suffering a seizure in detention and an immigration judge ordered her release on bond after New York mayor Zohran Mamdani asked for her release during his recent meeting with Donald Trump.

ICE: all their victims need to be released

On her release, Kordia said that she might be physically free – but is not really free until all ICE’s victims are released:

I’m just breathing the air right now but I’m not free inside until everyone is free and I’m holding them in my heart. We’re gonna keep fighting … there is a lot of injustice in this place.

Trump’s racist deportation gang has expelled more than 675,000 people from the US since he re-entered the White House. More than 68,000 others are held without charge in ICE and Customs and Border Patrol detention facilities. The Trump regime boasts of these numbers. ICE has murdered, or tried to murder, members of the public and smeared them as “domestic terrorists”, Yet it continues to avoid accountability for its crimes with the collusion of the federal government.

A relative of Kordia said that the impact on her had been “unimaginable“:

This past year has taken an unimaginable toll on Leqaa and our entire family. We are grateful to our community that stood beside us every step of the way, and for the countless prayers offered during this past Ramadan — those moments of sincerity and hope carried us through some of our darkest days.

Immigrant rights lawyer Sarah Sherman-Stokes said her legal team was “elated and relieved” but that the fight goes on for her and other victims:

We are elated and relieved that Leqaa can finally return home to her family in New Jersey after a long year in ICE detention. This is an important step in restoring Leqaa’s rights as she continues to be unlawfully targeted by the government for her advocacy for Palestinian rights.

We will continue this fight in both immigration and federal courts for as long as it takes, not only for Leqaa but for the freedom of all people facing unjust retaliation for speaking out against genocide.

Travis Fife, another lawyer working for Kordia’s freedom, added:

Today we are celebrating the long-delayed news that Leqaa will be reunited with her family in New Jersey. Since her detention over one year ago, the government has taken every effort to deny her basic rights and freedom, blocking her release not once but twice. Leqaa going home today is the bare minimum. We must continue to assert the fundamental First Amendment principle that the government cannot abuse power to punish people for using their voice.

Leqaa Kordia is not the only person who is unfree outside a prison. As Nelson Mandela said, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”. While the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples remain under the heel of imperial powers, none of us are really free.

Featured image via the Canary