Leqaa Kordia

Leqaa Kordia is a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman and long-time U.S. resident who was detained by ICE on March 13, 2025 after voluntarily meeting with immigration officials concerning her status. As of December 2025, Leqaa has been detained for over 9 months. Leqaa was previously arrested at a protest near Columbia University in 2024 against the genocide in Gaza — charges that were later dropped — and her ongoing detention is part of the Trump administration’s broader targeting of pro-Palestinian activists. Despite an immigration judge twice ordering her release and her lack of any serious criminal history, she remains held in a Texas detention center, far from her family, while challenging her detention as unconstitutional retaliation for her protected speech and activism.

Leqaa’s habeas petition remains pending. In late 2025, an immigration judge granted her withholding of removal, yet she remains detained.

Leqaa is represented by: Boston University Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (Sarah Sherman-Stokes), CLEAR, Muslim Advocates, and Texas Civil Rights Project.

 

Timeline

  • March 5, 2025: ICE begins surveillance of Leqaa.  

  • March 13, 2025: Leqaa visits DHS office in Newark with an attorney, thinking she will go in to address her paperwork. DHS arrests her and sends her overnight to Texas. 

  • April 3, 2025: an immigration judge (“IJ”) orders that Leqaa can be released on payment of $20k bond.

    • ICE argued Leqaa is a supposed danger and flight risk. First, they argued that her dismissed arrest and remittances sent to family members in Palestine rendered her a supposed danger. ICE presented no evidence to back up its claim about the remittances, except the fact of the remittances themselves, arguing that any transfer of money to someone living in Palestine is inherently suspect. 

  • April 4, 2025: Her cousin pays the bond. Despite this, Leqaa was not released because ICE filed notice of an “automatic stay” which paused the bond order.

  • April 30, 2025: Leqaa files a habeas petition in federal court challenging her confinement, including application of the automatic stay.

  • June 27, 2025: a magistrate judge in habeas recommends that Leqaa be released, holding the automatic stay is likely unconstitutional.

  • July 2, 2025: ICE seeks to switch out the automatic stay for a discretionary stay, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) grants this request to switch the stay of the bond order from “automatic” to “discretionary”  within less than 24 hours of DHS’s filing. Leqaa did not have an opportunity to respond.

  • July 16, 2025: district judge sends the habeas case back to the magistrate to reconsider the earlier recommendation, in light of her confinement pursuant to the discretionary stay, not the automatic stay (magistrate’s ruling was about the automatic stay).

  • August 12, 2025: BIA sends the first bond decision back to the IJ, asking the IJ to conduct more fact-finding on the issue of the remittances. solely on the issue of the money transfers (see below).

  • August 28, 2025: IJ holds a second bond hearing, again finds Leqaa releasable on $20k bond. Her cousin attempts to go in person to a local field office in Florida to pay the bond, and is turned away. Later that night, ICE files the form for the automatic stay a second time, and Leqaa remains confined.

    September 11, 2025: DHS files its notice of appeal of the second bond order with the BIA, and also asks that the BIA grant a discretionary stay of the bond order (to switch out the automatic stay again). 

    • Leqaa’s attorney does not receive notice of this until September 15, 2025. BIA grants the discretionary stay on September 15, 2025, without giving Leqaa an opportunity to respond. Leqaa is still confined pursuant to the discretionary stay, the bond appeal is pending at the BIA.