One year after Leqaa Kordia, a protester connected to pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, was detained by federal immigration authorities, supporters gathered outside the campus Friday night.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The rally also marks the end to a days-long relay hunger strike, in solidarity, calling for Leqaa Kordia’s release
\n
In an op-ed published this week, her mother wrote that her daughter\u2019s mental and physical health is deteriorating behind bars
\n
Organizers say Kordia\u2019s detention is retaliation for protesting at the school<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one week is really a traumatic week for those of us on campus. We watched our students and community members be targeted by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],\u201d Shayoni Mitra, a Barnard faculty member, said.<\/p>\n
The rally also marks the end of a days-long relay hunger strike, in solidarity, calling for her release.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe began on the one-year anniversary of the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil. And we ended today on the one-year anniversary of Leqaa Kordia,\u201d Barnard professor Rebecca Jordan-Young said.<\/p>\n
Kordia was not a student at the school. Organizers said her detention is retaliation for protesting.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NY1\u2019s request for comment, but in a previous response, a spokesperson wrote, in part: \u201cShe violated the terms of her student visa \u2026 Kordia was also found to be providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kordia remains an immigration detention in Texas.<\/p>\n
In an op-ed published this week, her mother wrote that her daughter\u2019s mental and physical health is deteriorating behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the kind of country that I want to live in when people are held captive for exercising their right to free speech,\u201d Columbia professor Jennifer Hirsch said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called on President Donald Trump to drop this case, and three others of Columbia students who are not detained.<\/p>\n
Columbia said it supports the right to protest, adding university leadership never requested or coordinated ICE’s presence on campus.<\/p>\n
On Friday, for a third time, a judge ordered Kordia to be released on bond. Her mother claimed the government has used technicalities to keep her daughter in custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year after Leqaa Kordia, a protester connected to pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, was detained by federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[109,25,2301,388,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,87,27],"class_list":["post-163028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-immigration","tag-louis-finley","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163028","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=163028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}