Meet the only campus protester still locked up by Trump, a 32-year-old Palestinian who grew up in the West Bank with aunts and uncles in Gaza | Fortune

"Growing up in the West Bank, Leqaa Kordia was separated from family in Gaza by Israeli restrictions on movement between the territories. So aunts and uncles in Gaza would call from the beach there, allowing Kordia to share her cousins' laughter and glimpse the waves. Now many of those relatives are dead, killed in the war that has destroyed much of the Strip. And more than 200 days after Kordia"

""Most days I feel helpless," said Kordia, 32, speaking from a Texas immigration detention center where she has been jailed since March. "I want to do something, but I can't from here. I can't do anything." Kordia, a Palestinian who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, was one of the first arrested in the government's campaign against protesters, many of them prominent activists. All the others have gained release."

"Only Kordia - mischaracterized by the government, largely overlooked by the public and caught in a legal maze - languishes in detention. That is, in part, because her story differs from most others who thronged campuses. When she joined demonstrations against Israel outside Columbia University, she wasn't a student or part of a group that might have provided support. As the arrests of activists like Mahmoud Khalil drew condemnation from elected officials and advocates, Kordia's case largely remained out of the public eye."

Leqaa Kordia grew up in the West Bank, separated from relatives in Gaza by Israeli movement restrictions and connecting with them by phone. Many relatives were killed as the war devastated much of the Strip. Kordia has been jailed in a Texas immigration detention center since March after arrest in a government crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters. She was among the first arrested but remains detained while others have been released; her case has been mischaracterized, largely overlooked and legally complex. Authorities cite her money transfers to relatives in the Middle East as suspected evidence of terrorist ties, and she reports feeling helpless and unable to give her family a voice from detention.

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