(RNS) — A Muslim woman who was the last pro-Palestinian protester still in immigration custody after the Trump administration’s 2025 campus crackdown walked free from a Texas detention center Monday (March 16). 

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman who has lived in New Jersey for 10 years and had been in custody for a year, was detained last March after protesting near Columbia University against Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, which killed nearly 200 of her family members. 

“Alhamdullah (thank God) I am free, after a long hard year,” she told worshippers at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center in Irving, Texas, hours after her release. “It wasn’t easy in ICE’s dungeons.” 

Kordia was freed Monday on a $100,000 bond after an immigration judge ordered her release on Friday, her lawyers said. It’s the third time a judge has ordered her release. The Department of Homeland Security challenged the first two rulings and kept her in detention.

In February, Kordia was hospitalized for a seizure and unreachable by her lawyers and family for three days, renewing nationwide calls for her release.

“We are overwhelmed with relief and gratitude at the release of our beloved Leqaa Kordia,” said Hamzah Abushaban, Kordia’s cousin, in a statement. “This past year has taken an unimaginable toll on Leqaa and our entire family.”

Kordia — who was not a student at Columbia and was not involved in political student organizing — was first arrested by New York City police during a protest outside the gates of the school in 2024, but the charges against her were dropped. The New York City Police Department later shared information about her arrest with the Trump administration. 

Kordia was then arrested during a voluntary check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey on March 13, 2025.  Her lawyer said she was in the process of securing legal residence. The federal government has said she was detained for overstaying her student visa.

In a statement to Religion News Service in February, a DHS spokesperson referred to her involvement in Palestine solidarity protests. DHS had previously also scrutinized Kordia’s payments to her family in Gaza, telling The Associated Press that Kordia was “providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”

Over the past year, other people who have protested in support of Palestinian rights have been placed in immigration detention and have faced legal proceedings, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Yaakub Ira Vijandre and Badar Khan Suri.

A kaffiyeh draped on her shoulders, Kordia told reporters outside of Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas on Monday that she would continue fighting for the people she met in detention.

In recent months, some Texas lawmakers raised alarms about Kordia’s detention, according to reports from The Dallas Morning News. Over 30 Texas state officials sent a letter in January to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem demanding Kordia’s release, saying her confinement is part of the Trump administration’s “broader crackdown on freedom of expression and its criminalization of peaceful protest.” 

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani also called for Kordia’s release in a recent meeting to President Donald Trump, he wrote on X.