By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) – A Palestinian woman, who lost dozens of family members in Gaza, was hospitalized on Friday following a seizure in a U.S. immigration detention, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.
The legal team and family of Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman living in the U.S. and whose mother is an American citizen, said she was discharged from hospital and returned to detention on Monday.
On February 6, 2026, at about 8:45 p.m. local time, “medical staff at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, notified ICE that detainee Leqaa Kordia was admitted to Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Burleson, Texas, for further evaluation following a seizure,” a DHS spokesperson said.
Kordia was detained by U.S. immigration authorities early last year during a meeting with immigration officials at the Newark Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office, where she was accompanied by her attorney.
At the time of her detention, Kordia was in the process of securing legal residency.
Her family and legal team said they did not receive updates or communication from U.S. authorities about her health during the hospitalization.
“While we are relieved Leqaa is out of the hospital, we still have no idea what her medical condition is and what happened to her the past three days,” her cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, said in a statement.
DHS says ICE ensured she received proper medical care.
Rights groups have reported on detainee complaints about conditions in ICE detention facilities, calling the conditions inhumane. The government has denied treating detainees inhumanely.
Amnesty International says 175 members of Kordia’s family have been killed during Israel’s assault on Gaza since late 2023 following an attack by militant group Hamas.
The Homeland Security Department says Kordia, who was raised in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was arrested for immigration violations related to overstaying her expired student visa. The DHS also says she was arrested by local authorities in 2024 during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University that the department cast as being supportive of Hamas.
Kordia and other protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Kordia has said she was targeted for pro-Palestinian activism and cast the conditions in her detention facility as “filthy, overcrowded and inhumane.”
President Donald Trump’s administration cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests by threatening to freeze federal funds for universities where protests occurred and by attempting to deport foreign protesters. It has faced legal obstacles while rights advocates say the crackdown hurts free speech and lacks due process.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Diane Craft)
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