Kordia back home after year in ICE detention
Paterson rally marks return, fight continues
By: Ricardo Kaulessar
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... After a year and three days spent in a Texas detention facility, Paterson resident Leqaa Kordia stood inside a much friendlier place on Sunday March 22: [2026] Paterson City Hall, where she was welcomed hum and addressed the media about her ordeal and her plans.
.....
It's been a long year, tough year in ICE dungeons, but I'm finally free," Kordia said, to applause. "But still my battle is not done."
..... In April 2024, Kordia took part in a demonstration outside the gates of Columbia University against Israel's military excursion into Gaza.
..... She was arrested after that demonstration, but the charges against her were dropped. However, as NorthJersey.com reproved, she was the target of a Homeland Security Department investigation and was arrested by the department in March 2025 after appearing for an interview at the Newark field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
..... The government said she had violated her student visa.
..... Kordia, 33, was released on March 16, 2026, from the Prairieland detention Center in Texas after her attorney Sarah sherman-stokes petitioned on her behalf because she has a serious medical condition and continued detention put her at risk for illness and "sudden death."
..... That led a federal immigration judge, Tara Naselow-Nahas, to free Kordia on bond after determining that she posed "next to no flight risk."
..... On Sunday, [03/22/2026] Kordia was flanked by her legal advocates, fellow former detainees including Mahmoud Khalil, and her cousin Hamzah Abushaban, along with local officials, including Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
..... There were also other supporters and well-wishers in the audience, all of who she thanked as well as members of the public, who had written her enough letters to fill a suitcase.
..... She spoke about the support helping her through a difficult detention, at times choking up with emotion when she recalled what she had experienced.
..... "I had seen and experience so much injustice in ICE dungeons," Kordia said. "the conditions were horrible to the point that there are no words to describe. I feel that we need hours to just address a few of them."
.... Kordia was hospitalized in February for three days, after she suffered a seizure, and she was kept shackled in chains and prevented from calling her family.
....
Yet she admitted feeling :ashamed"to complain about her situation when there are Palestinians who are still in Israeli prisons and said she felt guilty that she had not done enough to help fellow countrymen fighting for freedom. But she premised she would fight for them.
..... "Now they I am out, I promise to make up for all the lost time and use this liberation to advocate for their freedom and for the freedoms of all," Kordia said.
Still faces deportation
..... After she spoke, she told reporters that her immediate next steps were spending time with her friends and family. Sherman-Stokes, her lawyer, said Kordia still face deportation from the United States but is fighting that.
..... When asked by a reporter whether Kordia is allowed to protest and speak about her detention and if she is confined to New Jersey while fighting deportation, her attorney said she just has to let a judge know if she moves out of state and that she has a "First Amendment right to speak out."
.....
After the press conference, Kordia walked out of Cit Hall to a rally, where she was hailed by a throng of supporters.
.....
She led them in protest chants of "Free free Palestine" and then thanked them.
.... Staff Writer Hannan Adely contributed to this story.