Leqaa Kordia’s family said they were left in the dark when 33-year-old Leqaa Kordia was rushed from an immigration detention center in Texas to a nearby hospital late last week.
Cordia’s family and legal representatives said they were given no information about her whereabouts or condition for more than 12 hours. Her cousin Hamza Abushaban said the family had “hit a wall like crazy” in their search for answers.
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“Full transparency: Many in her family thought she might have died, especially since her condition was kept secret,” Abushaban told Al Jazeera. “Sometimes silence says it all.”
Her family and legal team confirmed on Tuesday that she had been released from the hospital. Cordia had suffered a seizure, but her family has only had brief contact with her since the medical emergency.
The ordeal is the latest development in Cordia’s nearly year-long detention, which began in 2024 when she was one of several protesters targeted by immigration authorities for participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia University.
Cordia is the only person targeted in connection with the demonstrations who remains in immigration detention.
Personal loss inspired her to protest, as around 200 members of her family were killed in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Abushaban said her recent medical emergency highlights the risks she faces from continued detention, not to mention the urgent need for her release.
“She’s a fighter, but she’s not fooling anyone,” he said. “She’s still sick.”
“Arbitrarily detained”
Amnesty International on Monday joined calls for Cordia’s release, echoing her family’s claims that she is being unfairly targeted for her pro-Palestinian advocacy.
“She has been arbitrarily detained for more than 10 months for exercising her right to free speech and protest,” Justin Mazzola, Amnesty International USA’s deputy director of research, said in a statement.
“The Trump administration must stop its cruel political gamesmanship with Requa’s life on the line. Requa Cordia must be released immediately and held accountable for her gross human rights violations.”
Cordia’s lawyers also allege unfair treatment, pointing to the fact that a federal judge has twice ruled that she is eligible to be released on bond.
Each time, her release has been blocked after immigration officials filed a “discretionary stay” request to keep her in custody while the government appeals.
Since March 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted various student activists for deportation. They include Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi of Columbia University and Rumeisa Ozturk, who attended Tufts University in Massachusetts.
However, these pro-Palestinian student activists have all successfully petitioned for their release while their case continues in immigration court, which has indicated they may be remanded in custody.
However, Cordia has not had the same success.
Cordia came to the United States in 2016 from the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah. Initially, she arrived on a visitor visa, but later moved to a student visa.
Eventually, she applied for permanent residency through her mother, a U.S. citizen living in New Jersey.
However, her legal team said she received incorrect advice from a trusted mentor that the initial approval of her application meant she had legal status. She then allowed her student visa to expire.
Immigration authorities, however, insisted that Cordia was not detained for overstaying his student visa or for pro-Palestinian advocacy.
However, in the initial news release announcing Cordia’s arrest in March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security indicated that she and a second protester who was said to have been “voluntarily deported” were being defended.
“It is an honor to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a statement.
“If you advocate violence and terrorism, your privileges should be revoked and you should not be in this country.”
“Intentionally dehumanizing”
In a statement Monday, Mazzola cited Cordia’s deteriorating health and accused immigration authorities of a “blatant disregard” for Cordia’s human rights while in custody.
Cordia is being held at Prairieland Detention Center, about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) from his family in New Jersey.
Writer and advocate Laila El Haddad visited Cordia in December and complained of unsanitary conditions in the crowded facility and lack of nutritious food, and said she found herself “very thin, very emaciated.”
“She said this is a place of deliberate dehumanization, aimed at stripping her and others of their dignity and humanity,” she told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Cordia’s lawyer and family said she regularly suffers from dizziness, fainting and other signs of malnutrition.
Still, El Haddad noticed that Cordia remained upbeat and described the 33-year-old as a pillar of support for other detainees.
“She’s a very humble person. She kept saying, ‘I’m not a leader or an activist,'” El-Haddad recalled.
El-Haded added that although Cordia’s case has not received as much attention as those of other student protesters, her story is just as powerful.
“She was not a public-facing activist or speaker like the other[targeted protesters],” El Hadid explained.
“But she felt compelled to[protest]because of the position she was in, because of her own humanity and a deep sense of ethics and awareness to act and speak out.”
Abushaban said he was keenly aware of Cordia’s absence from family events. This year has been a year of missing birthdays, holidays, and other gatherings.
He called on U.S. authorities, regardless of political affiliation, to show empathy for her plight.
“I was born and raised here, and the rest of my family was all born and raised here,” he said. “And we still have to feel oppressed in this country just because we are Palestinians.”
