Last protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman living in New Jersey, was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration's 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses. Kordia had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024. She was among roughly 100 people arrested at that demonstration. An immigration judge had ordered Kordia released on bond three times, but the government challenged the first two rulings. On March 16, 2026, Kordia was finally freed on a $100,000 bond after the government did not challenge the third release order. Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother, but vowed to keep fighting for others still detained. Kordia's case remained largely out of the public eye as her detention dragged on, unlike other activists like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk who were also detained as part of the Trump administration's crackdown. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had asked President Trump to release Kordia when they met last month.