Leqaa Kordia spent three days chained to a hospital bed after suffering the first seizure of her life, then was sent back to an immigration detention center 1,500 miles from her home in Paterson, New Jersey. She has been in custody for nearly a year, even though an immigration judge twice ordered her released on bond.
The 33-year-old Palestinian woman was hospitalized on Feb. 6 after fainting and hitting her head at the Prairieland Detention Facility, a privately run jail where she has been held since March 2025.
For 72 hours, her family and lawyers said, they could not find her. Immigration officials refused to say where she was or whether she was alive.
A journalist finally located her at Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Burleson. When a lawyer rushed there, guards denied access. Kordia remained in chains the entire time, she said in a statement released through her attorneys.
“My hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications,” Kordia said. “It was terrifying. I felt like an animal. My hands are still covered in marks from the heavy metal. They even refused to remove the chains when I went to the bathroom or took a shower.”
Doctors told her the seizure likely resulted from poor sleep, inadequate nutrition, and stress — conditions she said are routine at the Prairieland facility, where she has lost nearly 50 pounds.
The food is so bad it makes her sick, she said, and requests for halal meals have been denied.
“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,” she said. “We live in filthy conditions.”
Scott Sutterfield, a spokesperson for LaSalle Corrections, which operates 18 prison facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia, defended the care provided, saying it “exceeds established standards for health and safety” and includes meals that meet dietary needs.
Kordia came to the United States from the West Bank in 2016, moving in with her mother, a U.S. citizen.
She enrolled in English-language programs on a student visa and later applied for permanent residency through her mother. When a teacher led her to believe she was already a lawful permanent resident, she stopped attending school, inadvertently allowing her visa to expire.
In April 2024, after more than 100 of her relatives were killed in Gaza, she joined a pro-Palestinian protest outside Columbia University in New York. Police arrested her and more than 100 others.
The charges were dismissed the next day, and the case was sealed.
But federal officials were watching. In March 2025, agents visited her mother’s home in Paterson, photographing a “Palestine” sign on the porch.
Kordia voluntarily reported to an ICE office in Newark, believing there was a problem with her paperwork. Instead, she was handcuffed and flown to Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security accused her of overstaying her visa and providing financial support to “individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”
The money in question totaled a few thousand dollars sent to family members in Gaza for rent, utilities, and medical bills — remittances that tens of thousands of immigrants send home every day.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, announced Kordia’s arrest as part of a crackdown on “pro-Hamas” protesters, incorrectly identifying her as a Columbia student.
An immigration judge in April 2025 ordered Kordia released on a $20,000 bond, finding “overwhelming evidence” that she posed no threat. The government immediately filed an automatic stay, a rarely used provision that keeps detainees locked up during appeals.
A second judge also ordered her release. The government appealed again.
Kordia remains the only person still detained from the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters that swept up Mahmoud Khalil and others last year.
“How many times does a judge have to say someone should be free before they are actually free?” said Sarah Sherman-Stokes, Kordia’s immigration attorney. “The government has absolutely no evidence as to why she should be detained except for the fact that she spoke out for Palestinian liberation.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for her release, saying on social media: “Leqaa Kordia has spent nearly a year in an ICE prison for exercising her First Amendment rights in NYC and speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. She was hospitalized after suffering a seizure. Now she’s back in detention. This is cruel and unnecessary.”
The Department of Homeland Security defended its actions.
Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Kordia was being properly cared for and that for “many illegal aliens, this is the best health care they receive in their entire lives.”
Kordia’s cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, who visited her two weeks before the seizure, said she appeared frail and complained of headaches and dizziness.
“We’re all sick to our stomachs and extremely worried,” he said.
In her statement, Kordia said her case is not unique.
“I want everyone to know what happened to me because the same things are happening to other women who are locked up here,” she said. “There are women who have terminal cancer, disabled women, and pregnant women. They are all suffering, and none of us deserves to be here. No one deserves this.”
Discover more from NJTODAY.NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.