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The family of detained Palestinian Columbia University activist Leqaa Kordia said on Saturday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is withholding information on her whereabouts and health after she was rushed to the hospital on Friday.
Kordia’s family and legal team have said that ICE officials are refusing to give any information about where she has been hospitalized, nor are they sharing any specifics of her health status or how they will ensure her health when she is discharged.
In a press release, the attorneys and family members said they learned that she needed another night’s stay at the hospital, but have not even gotten confirmation of the reason she was hospitalized. They say that all they know is that she reportedly fainted and had a seizure.
“We are beyond worried; we are all terrified. DHS has refused to tell any of us what hospital she was taken to, let alone confirm whether Leqaa is even alive,” her cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, said. “When I saw her last week, separated by wired glass, she was so ill that she could not even lift the phone to her ear to speak to me. Her condition was visibly alarming. She looked frail, pale, and exhausted.”
“She told me she feels as though she is ‘slowly dying in here,’” Abushaban said.
Kordia is believed to be the last of the pro-Palestine Columbia protesters remaining in immigration detention. She has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention since March 2025, when she went to ICE’s headquarters for what she thought was a routine immigration appointment, but was instead detained and thrown into the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
An immigration judge has ordered Kordia to be released twice, but the Trump administration has worked to keep her detained with repeated filings in the Board of Immigration Appeals.
She has described being held in overcrowded cells, forced to sleep on concrete, and being denied basic accommodations for her Muslim faith, including accommodations for a hijab or for her to fast during Ramadan.
Kordia hails from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. DHS has openly tied her detention to her pro-Palestine activism, but claims that they are only holding her for an alleged visa violation, which her legal team denies. She would be handed over to Israeli authorities if the U.S. deports her.
“Through my continued detention, the Trump administration aims to send a chilling message: People who speak out for Palestinian rights or criticize Israel will face retribution,” Kordia wrote in an op-ed for USA Today last month.
“This blatant disregard of Leqaa’s human rights while in custody is appalling. It is yet another example of the real harm caused by the Trump administration’s relentless assault on rule of law and human rights,” said Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research for Amnesty International USA, in a statement. “The Trump administration must stop playing cruel political games with Leqaa’s life.”
Like other ICE immigration jails, Prairieland Detention Center is known for its abusive and inhumane conditions. Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri was also sent to Prairieland in March last year after he was doxxed by pro-Israel groups and his visa was revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio for expressing support for Palestinian rights amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He was released by a judge’s order after being detained for two months.
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