Last protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released

ALVARADO, Texas (AP) — A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration's 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses was freed Monday after a year in custody.

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked, in part, to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” Kordia, with a beaming smile, told reporters after emerging from the detention center.

An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.

Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard.” But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention center.

“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she said. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.”

Kordia was among a number of people arrested last year after the Trump administration began using its immigration enforcement powers on noncitizens who had criticized or protested Israel’s military actions in Gaza, many students and scholars at American universities.

Among them was Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student involved in campus protests. He spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail before being freed. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student who co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war, was detained for six weeks.

Others did not fight to stay — one Columbia doctoral student fled the U.S. after her visa was revoked and immigration agents showed up at her university apartment.

Arrests of activists like Khalil drew condemnation from elected officials and advocates. But Kordia was not a student or part of a group that might have provided support, so her case remained largely out of the public eye while her detention carried on.

Kordia said she joined a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. She was around 100 people arrested by city police at that protest, but the charges against her were dismissed and sealed. Information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City Police Department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.

Kordia was arrested during a March 13, 2025, check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey. She was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas.

Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa, while scrutinizing payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was meant to help family members suffering during the war.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, had previously criticized Kordia for what she said was "providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.” A message seeking comment was sent to the department Monday evening.

An immigration judge found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments.

Kordia was recently hospitalized for three days following a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility.

At a hearing Friday, Kordia’s attorneys said she had a neurological condition that had worsened while in custody, putting her at an elevated risk of seizure. They reiterated that she could stay with U.S. citizen family members and did not pose a flight risk.

The immigration judge, Tara Naslow, agreed.

“I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this,” Naslow said.

An attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, Anastasia Norcross, said the government opposed the release of Kordia, regardless of the bond. She did not say at the time whether it would appeal for a third time.

Kordia's advocates cheered her release.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he asked for her release when he met with President Donald Trump last month

Texas Civil Rights Project attorney Travis Fife said they were celebrating but still had work to do.

“Leqaa going home today is the bare minimum,” Fife said in a prepared statement. "We must continue to assert the fundamental First Amendment principle that the government cannot abuse power to punish people for using their voice.”

Offenhartz reported from New York.

Leqaa Kordia, with hands raised, stands by members of her legal team as she waves to supporters after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Leqaa Kordia, left, embraces friends, family and suppporters after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Leqaa Kordia, with hands raised, waves to supporters after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Leqaa Kordia, second from left, walks with her legal team after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Leqaa Kordia speaks to members of the media, family and her legal team after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Leqaa Kordia, with hands raised, waves to supporters after being released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

FILE - Leqaa Kordia, center, demonstrates with pro-Palestianian protesters at Columbia University in New York, April 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan accused Pakistan of targeting a hospital for drug users in the Afghan capital late Monday, saying the airstrike had killed at least 400 people. It marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.

Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.

Afghanistan's deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, in a post on X, said the airstrike had hit the hospital at about 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. He said the death toll had “so far” reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured.

Local television stations posted footage on X showing security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and recover the bodies.

The strike came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors in years entered a third week.

Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid condemned the strike on X, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.” In a post before the death toll rose into the hundreds, he said those killed and injured were patients at the hospital.

“We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he posted.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman, Mosharraf Zaidi, dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital was targeted in Kabul.

In a post on X before Afghan officials gave a death toll, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said the strikes “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban” and Afghanistan-based Pakistani militants in Kabul and Nangarhar, saying the facilities were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians.

It said Pakistan’s targeting was “precise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted.” The ministry said Mujahid’s claim was “false and misleading” and aimed at stirring sentiment and cover what it described as ”illegitimate support for cross-border terrorism.”

The strike came hours after the U.N. Security Council called on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to immediately step up efforts to combat terrorism. Pakistan accuses Kabul of harboring militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, which it says carry out attacks inside Pakistan.

The Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously, didn’t name Pakistan but condemns “in the strongest terms all terrorist activity including terrorist attacks.” The resolution also extends the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, for three months.

Pakistan’s government accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven to the Pakistani Taliban, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as to outlawed Baloch separatist groups and other militants who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies the charge.

The fighting — the most severe between the two neighbors — began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan that Kabul said killed civilians. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October after earlier fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.

Pakistan has declared it is in “open war” with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.

On Sunday, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the military has killed 684 Afghan Taliban forces, a claim rejected by Afghanistan, which says casualties are far lower. Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry and other officials have said Afghanistan has killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said Afghanistan’s Taliban administration crossed a “red line” by deploying drones that injured several civilians in Pakistan last week.

Responding to those attacks, Pakistan’s air force over the weekend struck equipment storage sites and “technical support infrastructure” in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province, saying it was being used for attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul said Pakistan hit two locations, including an empty security site and a drug rehabilitation center that sustained minor damage.

In Kabul, Afghanistan’s administrative Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said defending sovereignty is the duty of all citizens. Speaking during a meeting with political analysts and media figures, Hanafi expressed regret over civilian casualties in recent Pakistani attacks, saying the war was imposed on Afghanistan.

Ahmed reported from Islamabad and Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed.

People attend the funeral prayers of police officers, killed in the roadside bomb explosion, outskirts of Lakki Marwat, a district in northwest Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/G.A. Marwat)

Residents inspect the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)

Residents and Taliban police gather the remains of a projectile at the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)