Texas: Leqaa Kordia discharged from hospital, unjustly returned to ICE detention

Dallas, TX – After being hospitalized for more than 72 hours after a seizure, Leqaa Kordia was discharged and returned to ICE detention, February 9.

During the three days Kordia was hospitalized, neither family nor counsel laid eyes on her, heard her voice, or received any information about her current health status. Kordia’s legal team learned of her location from a journalist who got the information from the Department of Homeland Security.

One of her habeas counsel rushed to the location but was denied access to Kordia at the hospital, even by phone. Despite a looming deadline in her immigration case, Kordia’s immigration attorney had also been denied access, even by phone, and despite repeated, written requests.

ICE has been confining Ms. Kordia unlawfully in Prairieland Detention Facility for nearly a year. She is the last Columbia University protestor still in immigration confinement after speaking out about the ongoing genocide in Gaza that has killed nearly 200 of her family members. While in ICE custody, she has struggled with dizziness, fainting episodes, and other signs of poor nutrition on top of blatant violations of her religious liberties.

Kordia is represented in her federal lawsuit by the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), Muslim Advocates (MA), CLEAR, and Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel (WKPS) and in her immigration removal proceedings by the Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

“While we are relieved Leqaa is out of the hospital, we still have no idea what her medical condition is and what happened to her the past three 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,” said Hamzah Abushaban, Leqaa Kordia’s cousin and designated spokesperson.

“We were separated for nearly 20 years, and now my daughter has been snatched away from me and unjustly he’d by ICE for almost a year. Not knowing what hospital she was in, or what condition she was in has been agonizing. Like any other family, we were worried sick,” said Kordia’s mother.

“ICE has yet again demonstrated their inhumane cruelty by disconnecting Leqaa from her loved ones and legal representatives during an extremely critical time, all while risking her health and safety,” said Travis Fife, staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. “She was detained almost a year ago, and the government continues to punish her excessively and unjustly for exercising her First Amendment rights to assembly and expression.”

“Nearly one year ago, ICE detained Leqaa because she dared to speak out in support of Palestinian liberation. In the midst of a medical crisis, and despite repeated requests and an imminent court deadline, ICE denied her access to her family and to her legal team, in violation of her Constitutional rights. Leqaa should be free, recovering in New Jersey with her family. Instead, her family is left to wonder whether she would be another casualty of ICE custody,” said Sarah Sherman-Stokes, supervising attorney with the Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

“Leqaa should be at home with her family after this episode in the hospital. Instead, because ICE continues to seek to punish her for her advocacy for Palestine and Palestinians, including her own family, she was sent back to deplorable conditions, where no one could expect to recuperate meaningfully,” said Naz Ahmad, co-director of CLEAR.

“ICE disappeared Leqaa into a hospital without any access to her legal counsel and family, subjecting her loved ones to unbearable pain. This lack of transparency is straight from ICE’s playbook: isolate, conceal, and punish whomever it disfavors. Leqaa remains confined for speaking out against the genocide in Gaza and its toll on her family. We continue to demand her immediate freedom and the freedom of everyone hidden behind the bars of the debilitating and deadly immigration system,” said Sadaf Hasan, staff attorney at Muslim Advocates.

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