'I felt like an animal': Palestinian activist says ICE chained her in hospital after seizure

A Palestinian woman held in US immigration detention for nearly a year says she was shackled to a hospital bed for three days after suffering her first seizure, describing the experience as "dehumanising" and "terrifying".

Leqaa Kordia, 33, is currently detained at the Prairieland Detention Facility in North Texas.

In a statement on Thursday through her legal representatives, she said she experienced a seizure on 6 February after fainting twice inside the facility's medical unit.

"I woke up terrified and confused," Kordia said. "Not until enduring nearly a year of cruel confinement in inhumane conditions had I ever suffered one before."

According to her statement, witnesses told her that during the seizure she fell twice after leaving the bathroom, striking her head before beginning to convulse. She was transported by ambulance to a hospital.

Kordia said she remained in shackles throughout her hospitalisation.

"For three days in the emergency room, my hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications," she said. "It was terrifying. I felt like an animal. My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal."

She added that the restraints were not removed when she used the bathroom or showered, and that officers refused to explain why she was chained. When she asked a supervising officer, she said she was told: "Because I said so."

Kordia also said she was prevented from speaking with family members and that hospital staff denied entry to one of her attorneys.

"I worried that if something happened to me, no one would know," she said.

Her doctors, she stated, told her she was more prone to seizures due to poor sleep, inadequate nutrition and stress. Kordia has previously said she lost significant weight in detention and struggled to access food that complies with her religious dietary requirements.

"At Prairieland, your daily life - whether you can have access to the food or medicine you need or even a good night’s sleep - is controlled by the private, for-profit business that runs this facility," she said. "I've been here for 11 months, and the food is so bad it makes me sick."

Kordia is a Palestinian Muslim who grew up in the West Bank and later lived in New Jersey.

She was among dozens of people arrested outside Columbia University in 2024 during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The charges against her were dismissed.

She was later taken into custody during a routine check-in with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March 2025.

Federal officials have accused her of overstaying her visa and have scrutinised financial transfers she made to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia has said the funds were intended to support family members whose homes were destroyed in Gaza.

An immigration judge has twice ordered her released on bond, but the government appealed both rulings, prolonging her detention. She is the last Columbia protester still held in immigration confinement.

In her statement, Kordia said she believes she was targeted because of her activism.

"The only reason ICE targeted me in the first place is because I protested against the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza," she said, adding that nearly 200 of her family members have been killed.

"ICE detention facilities are built to break people and destroy their health and hope," she continued. "The best medicine for me and everyone else here is our freedom."