"Although Columbia University student protesters like Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil have been freed from ICE detention, "her case sort of fell between the cracks," says Laila El-Haddad, Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza, who just visited Kordia. El-Haddad also criticizes the Trump administration's effort to "crack down on any dissent and use immigration law, to weaponize immigration law to silence dissent and to criminalize free speech, especially when that speech relates to Palestine.""
"NPR's Radio Diaries recently aired part of a phone call between Leqaa Kordia and her cousin Hamzah Abushaban, who talks to her almost every day. LEQAA KORDIA: I received a call from my mother telling me, "There are people asking for you from the government." At the beginning, I felt like they were missing a form or something. OK, I'm just going to solve this"
Leqaa Kordia was arrested last year at a Gaza solidarity protest at Columbia University and had the charges dismissed. She attended an ICE check-in in March and was immediately taken into custody and transferred to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. She has been held in ICE detention for nearly ten months. Legal teams from CLEAR, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and Boston University School of Law's Immigrants' Rights Clinic are representing her. Other Columbia protesters, including Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, were released from ICE custody. Visitor Laila El-Haddad reported that Kordia's case "fell between the cracks" and criticized efforts to use immigration law against dissent relating to Palestine.
Read at Truthout
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