Family of disappeared Palestinian protester demand answers from ICE following hospitalisation

The family of Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian protester detained by the US’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demanded answers from the Department of Homeland Security on Monday regarding her whereabouts.

According to rights groups, the 33-year-old’s health has deteriorated significantly, resulting in her being hospitalised after she fainted and had a seizure.

Kordia has been detained by ICE for almost a year, with her family and legal team pressing for answers on where she has been hospitalised and specific details regarding her health.

The Texas Civil Rights Project said that Kordia was detained on 14 March for speaking out about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has killed around 200 of her family members in the besieged enclave.

Her detention continues despite an immigration judge twice determining her to be releasable. However, the Department of Homeland Security has kept her confined, with rights groups calling it an exploitation of administrative loopholes.

Kordia’s family has raised concerns over her condition, following reports that stated she was experiencing dizziness, symptoms of poor nutrition, and fainting episodes.

"She told me she feels as though she is ‘slowly dying in here.’ The government’s silence, combined with her rapid physical decline, raises the gravest fears for her life. Our family is demanding immediate answers, medical transparency, and her release before it is too late," Kordia’s cousin, Hamzah Abushaban told Muslim Advocates and the CLEAR Project, groups representing her.

"Leqaa has been wrongfully detained almost a year under egregious conditions and DHS’ silence regarding her whereabouts and condition have left her family, friends, and counsel in the dark. We demand that Leqaa’s family immediately receive notice of her location and current health status," Travis Fife, staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, added.

A supervising attorney from the Boston University School of Immigrants' Rights Clinic, Sarah Sherman-Stokes, said the lack of information about Kordia was deeply alarming, noting that at least 36 people have died in ICE detention since US President Trump came into office.

"It should not take 12+ hours and multiple concerted efforts to simply receive news about whether a loved one or a client in ICE detention is receiving urgent medical attention and why. Family members and counsel deserve more. If ICE hadn’t gone to every length to prevent Ms. Kordia’s release, we would not be in this situation of wondering what is happening with our client," Naz Ahmad, co-director of the CLEAR Project added.

Last month, Kordia published a poignant editorial article in US media, noting that her detention started after she voluntarily went to ICE headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, for what she believed to be routine immigration questions. 

She goes on to say she was placed in an unmarked van and sent  1,500 miles away from her home.

"I was spurred to action by my conscience and personal loss, inasmuch as I was by my lived experience growing up as a Palestinian under Israel’s brutal military rule," she wrote.

"I was born in occupied East Jerusalem and raised in the West Bank with my father. I grew up smelling tear gas on a daily basis and seeing him humiliated by Israeli soldiers. I once woke up to an Israeli soldier pointing his rifle at my head as I lay in bed. I was only 9 years old," she continued.

In the article, she goes on to describe discriminatory polices carried out by Israel that affected her life.

"I spent the first few years of my life in Gaza with my mother until the Israeli siege no longer made travel back and forth possible. I was separated from her for nearly 20 years before reuniting with her here in the United States in 2016. In a cruel twist of fate, I now find myself forcibly cut off from her once again".

She also states conditions in ICE detention are dire and inhumane, noting that there is severe overcrowding and cockroaches. She further noted she has been denied halal food – a requirement for Muslims.