My daughter, Leqaa Kordia, has been unjustly held in the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, for one year now, targeted by the federal government after participating in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. 

On March 13, 2025, she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during what she thought would be a routine immigration meeting in Newark, New Jersey, and flown 1,500 miles away from her home and family. This followed days of ICE surveilling and interrogating members of our community.

Leqaa, or Lulu, as I affectionately call her, grew up under Israel’s oppressive military occupation. I gave birth to her in Jerusalem, so premature that doctors told me it would be a miracle if she survived. Soon after, we moved to Gaza, where she spent the first years of her life.  

In 1998, after remarrying, I moved to the United States and became a citizen. I was separated from my beloved Leqaa, then living in the West Bank with her father, for two decades until we finally reunited 10 years ago when she joined me in New Jersey.

I was overjoyed. We were apart........

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