{"id":146654,"date":"2026-02-26T22:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146654\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T22:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:26:25","slug":"trump-agreed-to-immediately-release-student-detained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146654\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump agreed to immediately release student detained"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Columbia University student was arrested Thursday by\u00a0federal immigration agents<\/a>\u00a0who claimed to be searching for a \u201cmissing person\u201d in order to gain access to a campus apartment, according to her attorneys and the school\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

A Columbia University student was arrested Thursday by\u00a0federal immigration agents\u00a0who claimed to be searching for a \u201cmissing person\u201d in order to gain access to a campus apartment, according to her attorneys and the school\u2019s president
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Hours after she was taken into custody, though, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a\u00a0social media post\u00a0that he had discussed the arrest during an unrelated meeting with President Donald Trump, who agreed to release the student \u201cimminently”
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The student, Ellie Aghayeva, is a senior from Azerbaijan studying neuroscience and political science. A self-described content creator, she has amassed a large social media following by sharing day-in-the-life videos and tips for navigating college as an immigrant<\/p>\n

Hours after she was taken into custody, though, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a\u00a0social media post<\/a>\u00a0that he had discussed the arrest during an unrelated meeting with President Donald Trump, who agreed to release the student \u201cimminently.”<\/p>\n

The student, Ellie Aghayeva, is a senior from Azerbaijan studying neuroscience and political science.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just before 4 p.m., Aghayeva posted to social media that she had been released.<\/p>\n

“I just got out a little while ago. I am safe and okay. In an uber otw back home. I am so sorry over what happened and my phone is blowing up with calls from reporters,” she said.<\/p>\n

A self-described content creator, she has amassed a large social media following by sharing day-in-the-life videos and tips for navigating college as an immigrant.<\/p>\n

At around 7 a.m., Aghayeva posted a message to her more than 100,000 followers on Instagram: \u201cDHS illegally arrested me. Please help.” A photo accompanying the post appeared to show the backseat of a vehicle.<\/p>\n

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed Aghayeva’s arrest and said her student visa had been terminated in 2016 for failing to attend classes. The spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about when or if she would be released.<\/p>\n

In an emergency petition, attorneys for Aghayeva said she had entered the country on a visa in or around 2016. They said she was taken into custody early Thursday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who didn’t have a warrant but \u201crepresented they were searching for a missing person to gain entry” to the university-owned apartment.<\/p>\n

She was being held at the federal detention center in Lower Manhattan, the lawyers wrote. They declined to provide additional comment, including details about her immigration status.<\/p>\n

In an email shared with students and staff, the university\u2019s acting president, Claire Shipman, said that federal agents had entered a residential building at around 6:30 a.m., claiming they were seeking a missing person.<\/p>\n

She said the university was in the process of reaching out to the student\u2019s family and providing legal support.<\/p>\n

The use of disguises or other misrepresentations by immigration authorities has drawn attention in recent months, after federal agents were seen\u00a0posing as utility workers<\/a>\u00a0and other service employees in Minneapolis and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The practice is legal, in most cases. But immigration attorneys say such ruses are becoming increasingly common, adding to concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s\u00a0dramatic reshaping of immigration enforcement tactics<\/a>\u00a0nationwide.<\/p>\n

The incident comes nearly one year after federal agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, then a Columbia graduate student and Palestinian activist, inside his university-owned housing. Khalil is out on bail, fighting his own\u00a0deportation case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the months after his arrest, many students called on the university to do more to secure the campus from federal immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

Columbia currently requires that all law enforcement agents have a judicial warrant or subpoena to access non-public areas of the university, including housing.<\/p>\n

In her email, Shipman said students should not allow law enforcement agents to enter non-public areas of the university and should not accept service of a warrant or subpoena, but should call campus public safety instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Columbia University student was arrested Thursday by\u00a0federal immigration agents\u00a0who claimed to be searching for a \u201cmissing person\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[203,109,25,118,67,75,84,83,9,24,12,108,63,87,380,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-146654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-app-education","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-associated-press","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-manhattan","14":"tag-manhattan-headlines","15":"tag-manhattan-news","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","23":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}