The last Columbia University protester’s hospitalization and subsequent disappearance are just the latest bad omens amid worsening conditions in confinement.

As her time in confinement approaches a full year, Columbia protester and Palestinian human rights advocate Leqaa Kordia, 33, was missing in ICE custody for over 72 hours following a medical episode last Friday.

On February 6, Kordia was hospitalized following a seizure, potentially caused by head trauma in the detention center bathroom. It took over 24 hours for Kordia’s team to confirm she was hospitalized. Another two days later, her location was disclosed to a Dallas Morning News reporter without condition, despite DHS citing “security risks” in sharing the location of the hospital with lawyers and family.

“ICE refused to provide insight into where she was being held, what the underlying condition was, what the prognosis was, and they similarly, didn’t tell the family anything either. So you can imagine getting a message that your loved one just had a seizure in ICE custody, and the terror and panic that you would feel as a result of that. And so it was an incredibly stressful and scary 72 hours for her family,” Travis Fife of Texas Civil Rights Project and Kordia’s team said to Mondoweiss following her return to detention. 

“This was not a one-time freak medical accident. This was the culmination of 11 months of daily deprivation while Leqaa has been unconstitutionally confined in ICE custody.”

Travis Fife, Texas Civil Rights Project

Prior to her hospitalization, Kordia reported several symptoms, including a fever, dizziness, and brain fog, likely due to malnutrition. Hamzah Abushaban, Kordia’s cousin visiting Dallas from his home in Miami, Florida, met with Kordia alone on the prior Sunday and described her as “malnourished” and looking “extremely sick.”

In an interview with Mondoweiss, Abushaban said that his cousin’s outspoken nature and advocacy for others have led to worse treatment over time.

“She’s a very selfless person,” Abushaban said. “Whenever there’s an injustice, she would say ‘this is wrong,’ whether it’s food-related, access to the [computer] tablets, she would speak up, even if it’s not on herself and for someone else. It’s almost like the very next day, there’s something negative that happens to her specifically…I do think there’s a bit of retaliation going on there.”

Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where Kordia has been since shortly after DHS arrested her on March 13, 2025, has reportedly been over capacity with plumbing issues and unsanitary food. She has suffered skin rashes, sickness, and is experiencing symptoms of malnourishment while inside. Kordia has additionally been refused her religious accommodations as a Muslim woman and has stated that roaches are infesting dormitory areas.

DHS/ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Increasing isolation

Prior to her disappearance, Kordia was refused a visitation with a state representative when Abushaban, accompanied Rep. Salam Bhojani, D-Texas 92, to Prairieland Detention Center on Friday, January 30. Upon arrival, Alvarado police, including its chief, were waiting to greet them with up to eight vehicles in the parking lot. After questioning the two, the police stated that visits to the detention center were indefinitely cancelled, with no explanation. Kordia, who was sick with the flu, was told at the same time that visits were cancelled, though she says some visits were still occurring. Detention staff told Kordia that there was a lockdown due to “over 200 protesters outside” at the time. In reality, there were fewer than ten people outside, all of whom were family or members of Kordia’s or Bhojani’s teams.

Kordia has been in confinement for over 330 days. She currently awaits a decision on a habeas petition filed in mid-September, as well as a final decision on her bond, which a judge already ordered prior to a DHS appeal. Kordia’s team, which is jointly led by Texas Civil Rights Project, Muslim Advocates, and CLEAR, held a press conference following the denial of her visitation.

“It’s like the Japanese internment camps, people from one country being targeted. Leqaa’s religion and [her connection to] Palestine… it’s why she’s being targeted. So that’s obviously not fair, and that’s not something that we should accept. If one person is targeted, any one of us can be targeted.”

Texas State Representative Salman Bhojani to Mondoweiss on the U.S. government’s targeting of Leqaa Kordia.

Rep. Bhojani is one of many lawmakers across the state and federal levels calling for Kordia’s release, as more than thirty others have spoken out against her continued detention in letters authored by Rep. Cory Booker and Rep. Bhojani himself. 

In Kordia’s absence, her family has experienced greater challenges, including those related to care taking duties for her disabled brother and the financial support she provided through her job as a waitress.

“We take our friends and family sometimes for granted,” Abushaban said. “But you remove such a quiet individual in society like Leqaa just out of the equation, and it’s a huge impact.”

Targeted by the U.S. government

Abushaban emphasized the government’s targeting of Kordia through recounting the brief nationwide manhunt last March when police came to his family’s residence in Miami looking for her.

“I’m in the car with my manager, and a 201 number keeps calling. I decline, literally. Decline, decline, decline. And my manager is like, ‘Dude, I don’t think that’s a spam call. You should answer it,’ so I answer it. No, ‘Hi, this is so and so.’ It’s like, ‘Do you know a Leckay Carda?’ And I’m like, ‘You got the wrong number, dude.’ He just hangs up,” Abushaban said. 

“After, I get the notification that someone’s at my door. And I look at the camera, and there’s just a bunch of guys in regular clothes, kind of like tactical clothes, jeans, nothing that says ‘police,’ except for these really big dog tags. My dad’s not a criminal, I’m not a criminal, my mom’s not a criminal. I live with my little brother, and my little sister was in med school. We’re all like, under the radar, nothing, nothing crazy. I’m like, why are there four guys knocking on my door at eight o’clock at night? So it was a nationwide manhunt.”

While agents were visiting Kordia’s mother in New Jersey as well, DHS officers were dispatched locally in Miami to determine whether the family was harboring Kordia or was aware of her location. After Kordia’s arrest, the family’s bank account was briefly frozen due to payments for family members in Palestine. Abushaban says that only the threat of legal action allowed him renewed access to the accounts. 

“She just wants to fight for her own freedom alongside Palestine’s freedom. And to this day, there’s that symbiotic fight. She knows that her small win of getting out or bringing attention to this case is also a win for Palestine’s freedom eventually. I think that’s what’s kind of keeping her a little sane, and that’s top of mind for her… She never really saw herself as an activist. She just wants us to have the same basic human rights everyone in the world deserves.”

Hamzah Abushaban, Leqaa Kordia’s cousin, on her status as a political prisoner.

When officers stated that “New York” was “looking for her,” Abushaban assumed Kordia missed a court date for a minor crime related to protesting. Then the family found out it was about her immigration status. “And that’s when it was very evident, very clear, that the only crime she committed was being Palestinian and speaking of Palestine,” said Abushaban.

Fife says that the government is “absolutely and unequivocally” targeting Kordia and has pointed to state utilization of Zionist doxxing sites as part of a concerted effort to track individuals supportive of Palestine, including Kordia specifically.

“Not only did DHS tweet about her and say that she was anti-American, they also admitted that – like top level DHS officials specified in a case in Massachusetts – they rely on websites like Betar and other Zionist propaganda sites to identify people who were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.” 

‘It’s never been more urgent to call for her release‘

Kordia’s family and legal team have leveraged their outrage over her recent health scare and disappearance for a renewed and continued call for her release. In a statement released on February 9 following Kordia’s return to detention, Abushaban emphasizes the critical state that Kordia’s case is in.

“While we are relieved that Leqaa is out of the hospital, we still have no idea what her medical condition is and what happened to her for the last 3 days. Now she is forced back to the nightmarish conditions of ICE detention that put her in the hospital. It has never been more urgent to call for her release,” Abushaban said on behalf of the family.

Sadaf Hasan, another member of Kordia’s legal team, said her disappearance was “straight from ICE’s playbook” to “isolate, conceal, and punish whomever it disfavors.” Fife said it “reflects both the inhumanity of Leqaa’s experience in detention, but also the emotional trauma of family separation in custody.”

Concerns for Kordia’s health remain as pressing as ever. Even in an interview days before Kordia’s hospitalization, Fife described her health as his principal concern. Though Fife anticipated challenges coming later with the arrival of the holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start around February 18.

“One of my fears is that, you know, is that as we enter Ramadan, she’s already suffering from malnutrition. How is she gonna exercise her faith,” Fife told Mondoweiss. “Even without keeping to the more regimented fasting schedule Ramadan requires, she’s struggling so intensely.”

Despite bond rulings to free Kordia still shackled by DHS appeals, Kordia’s habeas case remains in play as her team states the judge could still order Leqaa’s release at any time.

“Answering phone calls, answering press requests for comment. You know, dealing with the public pressure, that is an added layer,” Fife said. “The intensity with which immigration enforcement has increased has obviously been alarming and scary. But this huge public opposition to it, I think, has really made people question some foundational assumptions about the amount of power we’ve given DHS and ICE specifically as a sub-agency of DHS.”

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