Nearly One Year in Custody: Palestinian Detainee Claims Rights Violations
Leqaa Kordia spent three days in a Texas emergency room last week. Her body, worn down by nearly a year in immigration custody, had given way. She fainted, struck her head, and suffered a seizure—the first of her life, she says. Doctors told her the episode may have been the result of chronic poor sleep, inadequate nutrition, and unrelenting stress.
Throughout those three days, Kordia remained shackled. Heavy chains weighed down her hands and legs as medical staff drew blood and administered medication. She was unable to call her family or meet with her lawyers.
“I felt like an animal,” she said in a statement released through her attorneys Thursday. “My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal.”
A Year in Limbo
Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman who grew up in the West Bank and became a New Jersey resident, has been held at the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas since March 2025. Her initial arrest came during pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University in 2024, part of a wave of campus protests following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The charges against her were later dismissed and sealed.
Yet her arrest record did not disappear. New York City police provided the information to Trump administration officials, who cited it in a sweeping crackdown on noncitizens who had publicly criticized Israel’s actions. Kordia became one of the first arrested under that directive. Nearly a year later, she is the only one still behind bars.
A Case Without Conviction
Kordia has not been accused of any crime. An immigration judge has twice ordered her released on bond. Both rulings were challenged by the government—an unusual step in cases not involving serious offenses—triggering a lengthy appeals process that has kept her detained while her case languishes.
Federal officials have pointed to her expired visa and scrutinized payments she sent to relatives in Gaza. Kordia has maintained that the money was intended for family members whose homes were destroyed in the war. An immigration judge found “overwhelming evidence” supporting her account.
Her attorneys say she previously held valid student status but mistakenly surrendered it after applying to remain in the country as the relative of a US citizen—a procedural error, they argue, not an intentional violation.
“The Food Is So Bad It Makes Me Sick”
The conditions of Kordia’s detention have drawn mounting concern. She has lost 49 pounds since her incarceration, a decline her lawyers attribute in part to the facility’s refusal to provide meals compliant with her religious dietary requirements. She has fainted previously, including once in the shower.
“At Prairieland, your daily life—whether you can have access to the food or medicine you need or even a good night’s sleep—is controlled by the private, for-profit business that runs this facility,” her statement read.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin did not respond to a request for comment but told The New York Times that Kordia was not being mistreated and was receiving proper medical attention.
“The Best Medicine Is Our Freedom”
Kordia’s ties to Gaza are deep and personal. She joined the 2024 demonstrations after learning that scores of her relatives had been killed in Israeli strikes. “My way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets,” she told the Associated Press in October.
Now, nearly a year into her detention, she describes a system designed to break its inhabitants. “This place was built to break people and destroy their health and hope,” she said.
Her statement concluded with a simple plea: “The best medicine for me and everyone else here is our freedom.”
For Kordia, freedom remains elusive—shackled in a hospital bed, weighed down by metal and months of uncertainty, waiting for a resolution that has not come.
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