The Dictatorship
Columbia University protester says year in ICE custody ‘destroyed’ her physical health
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than a year after participating in protests near Columbia Universitysat down with MS NOW for her first television interview since being released from custody.
She joined “The Weekend: Primetime” on Sunday to discuss her time inside a Texas detention center and the toll it took on her physical and mental health.
Earlier this month, an immigration judge ordered that Kordia be released on a $100,000 bond. The 33-year-old had been held at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, since last March, after federal authorities arrested her for overstaying her student visa. She has not been charged with a crime.
“It was an awful experience,” she said of her time at the Texas facility. “It was a long, tough year. The conditions in ICE detentions are horrible, horrific. I always say that we need days to talk about [a] few of the conditions.”
According to Kordia, detainees live in inhumane conditions and lack adequate access to nutritious food and proper health care, which she said she witnessed firsthand after suffering from a seizure while in custody. “Medical care is horrible,” she said. “They don’t have doctors. They don’t have even nurses.”
She said she had a fever a few days before experiencing a seizure. “I looked miserable,” she said. “I felt miserable, and I was begging them for help. … Nobody showed up.”
While Kordia said she does not remember what happened in the moments before her seizure, she recalled waking up in the medical unit “terrified.”
For the next three days, she was “chained” to a hospital bed, she said. “If I wanted to use the bathroom, I would be chained. If I wanted to take a shower, I’d be chained,” she told MS NOW.
“I actually felt relieved when I went back to the dorm because my experience at the hospital was like they’re torturing me,” she added.
Kordia said the experience “destroyed” her physical health. “I experienced my first seizure ever in my whole life,” she said. “Now I have to be on a heavy anti-seizure medication for at least two years. This is like changing my whole health.”
She also spoke about the emotional toll of her year in detention, saying: “It’s affecting my mental health also — like, not having a stable physical health affects your mental health. I was in a jail for a whole year. I was treated awfully. I was humiliated many times, so often.”
You can watch Kordia’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”