Surveilled, detained: Feds pursue Paterson woman a year after Gaza protest
'We will find you, and we will deport you,' Trump said while announcing an executive order.
In the ensuing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism, Leqaa Kordia of Paterson said she soon found that the Department of Homeland Security was investigating nearly every aspect of her life.
They interrogated her mother, uncle, a clothing store owner and tenants of an apartment that she briefly rented. They traced her WhatsApp messaging account and subpoenaed records from MoneyGram. They photographed her mother's home, she said.
The scrutiny, described in a federal lawsuit, came nearly a year after her participation at a demonstration on April 30, 2024, outside the gates of Columbia University. New York City police arrested 119 protesters on and off campus that day, including Kordia, a Palestinian who had been in the United States since 2016.
Although charges were dropped, the arrest put her on federal authorities' radar, the lawsuit shows.
In March, the Department of Homeland Security announced Kordia had been arrested for overstaying her student visa. Kordia's mother had filed a family-based petition for her to become a permanent resident that she mistakenly thought gave her temporary legal status, her attorneys said.
Today, she remains in Texas at the Prairieland Detention Facility, 1,500 miles away from her family, held in what her attorneys describe as 'inhumane conditions.'
On June 5, she will appear at the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern Texas, where she filed a petition alleging that her detention violates her rights to free speech and due process. Her attorneys will argue a motion for her release.
Kordia's case points to a broader and unconstitutional campaign to silence pro-Palestinian advocacy, her attorneys said, with the Trump administration 'weaponizing' immigration law to achieve that goal.
'Immigration authorities targeted and selectively prosecuted her and there is no justification for her continued detention,' said Arthur Ago, at attorney with the South Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy and civil rights organization representing Kordia.
The U.S. government, Ago said, is 'using immigration law as a pretext to target individuals for exercising their freedom of expression.'
The Department of Homeland Security wrote in an email that Kordia's student status was terminated for "lack of attendance." They noted, too, that she had been arrested for involvement in what they called 'pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University." They did not address allegations that her detention violated her constitutional rights.
The White House reiterated its vow to deport "anti-American radicals" after an Egyptian threw incendiary devices at people gathered at a June 1 demonstration to advocate for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in Boulder, Colorado.
DHS said Mohamed Sabry Soliman entered the country legally with a B-2 tourist visa in August 2022. The visa expired six months later. Soliman applied for asylum in September 2022. Individuals with pending asylum applications are generally protected from deportation while their cases are pending.
The attack escalated fears because it occurred soon after a fatal shooting in Washington D.C. on May 21 by suspect Elias Rodriguez, an American citizen who shouted 'Free Palestine' after he killed two members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington outside a Jewish museum.
Born in Jerusalem, Kordia grew up in the West Bank with her father. Her parents divorced when she was a child and, in 2016, she traveled to the United States where her mother lived in Paterson.
When she went to the protest outside Columbia's gates, Kordia was mourning the loss of more than 100 family members killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
"Ms. Kordia was moved to join this demonstration and others because of the sense of loss she felt, and still feels, from losing an entire generation of her family in Gaza," the petition states. "This helped her begin to mourn for the family she had lost. The demonstration, at least where Ms. Kordia stood, was peaceful and nonviolent. Ms. Kordia joined in the group's chanting 'ceasefire now!' and end the siege on Gaza!' among other slogans."
Police arrested Kordia and others as they ordered the crowd to disperse. She was released the next day, and police dropped a disorderly conduct charge, according to the complaint and to news reports.
Then, in March, Homeland Security agents visited her mother's home and got on the phone with Kordia, saying they had questions about her immigration status. She made an appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark on March 13, where officers informed her she had overstayed her student visa.
Kordia had been enrolled in an English language program and withdrew after her mother filed the application for her residency. It was an error she made based on bad advice, her legal team said.
In a standard assessment, ICE "rated her as low risk across all risk factors, including risk to public safety, flight risk, and criminal history," according to the complaint.
"Immediately after officers processed Ms. Kordia at the Newark Field Office," the complaint states, "three officers placed her in an unmarked vehicle and transported her to an airport. The officers immediately brought her to a gate to wait for a plane."
In the average visa overstay case, people are allowed to fight their immigration case from home, especially where there is no criminal history, said SPLC attorney Sabrine Mohamad.
'Among the legal team, we have decades and decades of immigration experience and none of them have ever seen someone put in detention and flown out of the state simply for an overstayed visa,' Mohamed said.
At an April 3 bond hearing, Homeland Security lawyers alleged Kordia was a danger because of her protesting and a $1,000 wire transfer she made to her aunt, according to the complaint. It was an errand for her mother, a routine offer of help to a family member abroad, Mohamad said.
"The immigration judge found, in connection with the April 30, 2024 arrest, no evidence that Ms. Kordia had threatened police or engaged in any dangerous activity," the complaint states. "Similarly, the immigration judge rejected DHS's baseless suggestion that Ms. Kordia may have provided support to a terrorist group, noting that the government admitted they do not know any information about the recipient of the single transaction attributed to Ms. Kordia."
The immigration judge determined Kordia posed no risk and granted her a bond of $20,000. Homeland Security appealed, so she remains in custody.
'They have yet to provide a shred of evidence of illegal activity. That evidence does not exist,' Mohamed said.
Under U.S. law, being in the country without legal permission is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.
In Kordia's case, Homeland Security included her sealed arrest record from the New York City Police Department as evidence for her removal. City law bars police from sharing information with federal agencies for immigration purposes. Homeland Security officials told police they were investigating Kordia for money laundering, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters.
The detention center was overcrowded, so Kordia slept on a concrete floor with a thin mattress and blanket with about 55 women in a room meant for 20, the lawsuit states. Roaches crawled on the floor around them. She remained there for a month. When a bed became available, it was under an industrial air conditioner that blew frigid air. She could not get a bed transfer and asked to be moved back to the concrete floor.
Kordia also alleged that she was denied medication for a rash that bled and cough drops for a sore throat. She asked but did not receive medical care for migraine headaches, dizziness and psychological distress, she claimed.
A practicing Muslim, Kordia also said she 'has not had a single halal meal' despite repeated requests, even as kosher meals were provided for other detainees, the complaint states. During Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, she also could not get meals at appropriate times. In a month, Kordia dropped from 170 to 121 pounds, according to the complaint.
In her complaint, Kordia alleged that her treatment violates her religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The GEO Group, the private prison corporation that operates the Prairieland Detention Facility, said in an email that it provides 'around-the-clock access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation, general and legal library access, dietician-approved meals, religious and specialty diets, recreational amenities, and opportunities to practice their religious beliefs.'
Its services, a spokesperson added, are monitored by ICE, organizations within the Department of Homeland Security and accreditation groups 'to ensure strict compliance with ICE detention standards.'
Pro-Palestinian protests swept through college campuses and streets across the United States after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent military assault. Trump administration officials have alleged that protesters promoted antisemitism and posed national security threats.
Student protests have been largely peaceful and included Jewish activists. Organizers say their actions are targeted at the Israeli government, not at Jews.
In an array of cases, allegations made against detained students and scholars were not criminal.
In at least three cases, they cited a Cold War-era statue allowing the secretary of state to move to deport non-citizens deemed harmful to American foreign policy.
The law was cited against Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk , scrutinized for writing a 2024 op-ed in a student newspaper critical of Israel, and Badar Khan Suri, who wrote pro-Palestinian comments on social media that officials claim were pro-Hamas, a charge he and his attorneys say is false.
It was levied, too, against Mahmoud Khalil, a spokesperson for Columbia University protesters. They also alleged that Khalil had inaccuracies in his green card application, although he is disputing that claim in federal court in New Jersey.
'This administration is not just denying those who are detained the right to live in dignity,' Mohamad said. 'It's also weaponizing their silence as a warning to the rest of us that if you advocate for Palestine or express any form of dissent you will be disappeared and silenced.'
A magistrate judge at the June 5 hearing will rule on whether Kordia should be released in a recommendation that will be provided to the U.S. District Court judge. Kordia is also represented by the Texas Civil Rights Project, Muslim Advocates, the CLEAR project and Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel.
Rallies are planned June 5 in Dallas and in Newark outside the Delaney Hall detention center at 11 a.m. to call for Kordia's release.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Leqaa Kordia of Paterson NJ fights for ICE detention release
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