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 for so long, it took time to get reacquainted. Now, in a cruel twist, she has been taken from me once again.   

Leqaa was taken from me for standing up for Gaza

When Israel, in response to Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, began destroying Gaza, my daughter was driven by her humanity to stand up for what’s right, and against the violence and injustice that was being inflicted upon her relatives and millions of other Palestinians.

Israel, with the backing of the U.S. government, has killed close to 200 members of our family in Gaza over the course of the past two-plus years.

My daughter attended a demonstration in support of student anti-war protesters at the gates of Columbia University in April 2024. It was at this protest that she was arrested along with many others, only to have the charges dismissed. 

Then, a year ago, ICE came looking for Leqaa. We thought it was a misunderstanding ‒ little did we know she was one of the first of many individuals who were being targeted for speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza, which experts have called a genocide.

We believed she’d be out quickly. An immigration judge twice granted her release, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was quick to use a legal technicality called an automatic stay to keep her locked up for an extended time without legitimate justification, violating her due process rights.

Cruel and unusual treatment by DHS

This week, my daughter was up for a shocking third bond hearing only to have it abruptly canceled at the last minute.

Leqaa, 33, did nothing to warrant this cruel and unusual treatment and is neither dangerous nor a flight risk. DHS took her to make an example of those who dare to exercise their freedom of speech in support of Palestinian human rights and in protest of U.S foreign policy. 

On Feb. 6, Leqaa lost consciousness, hit her head and suffered a seizure while in detention. For three excruciating days, neither our legal team nor I knew her whereabouts, or even whether she was dead or alive, information that was kept from us by DHS.

Later, when she was sent back to detention, she told me that when she was in the hospital, though she was weak and barely able to stand, they shackled her hands and feet, even when using the bathroom, and surrounded her by armed agents at all times.  

Leqaa’s health, both physical and mental, continues to deteriorate due to her prolonged detention in what has been described as overcrowded, filthy, inhumane conditions.

Leqaa has never harmed a fly in her life, so why has she been singled out like this? Why treat her this way?

My daughter has always been a sensitive and compassionate person, tireless in her service of others, principled, faithful and hardworking. She loves her community, her friends and the world at large. Everything she does, she does from the heart.     

The Eid holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan is fast approaching, and this year, it coincides with Mother’s Day in the Arab world.

I plead with President Donald Trump to release Leqaa immediately. On a day meant to honor mothers and families, she belongs at home with hers, not spending another day behind bars.  

Hidaia Salem is the mother of Leqaa Kordia and a resident of Paterson, New Jersey.  

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