‘Consequences of raising my voice’: Leqaa Kordia suffers fifth seizure since ICE detention

Submitted by Mounira Elsamra on Tue, 09/15/2026 - 19:14 Palestinian activist says seizures began in ICE custody and have continued since her release, as advocates raise concerns about medical care in immigration detention centres

Leqaa Kordia shouts slogans calling for freedom for Palestinians, following her return home after more than one year in ICE detention in Texas, at City Hall, Paterson, New Jersey, on 22 March 2026 (Eduardo Munoz)
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Leqaa Kordia says she has suffered her fifth seizure since being released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in March.

The 33-year-old Palestinian activist said the seizure struck shortly after she returned home from a panel on Sunday at Riverside Church in New York City. She was praying when, still wearing her prayer clothes, she suddenly had a seizure.

“I was scared, exhausted, dizzy, and confused,” Kordia said in a statement posted on Instagram on Monday.

“I had never had a seizure before ICE jailed me for exercising my freedom of speech and my right to protest.”

Kordia arrived in the US from the occupied West Bank in 2016 on a Palestinian Authority passport. She was initially a visitor before adjusting to student status, as she began learning English.

ICE officials detained Kordia in March 2025 after she voluntarily went to meet with immigration agents after learning that people who knew her were being questioned about her life and that agents had also approached her home.

It was during that meeting in Newark, New Jersey, on 13 March that she was served with a notice to appear in court and then taken away overnight to a Texas facility.

Leqaa Kordia, longest-detained pro-Palestine protester, freed from ICE custody Read More »

She remained in detention for a year and three days before an immigration judge ordered her release on 13 March 2026.

Her first publicly reported seizure happened while she was still in ICE custody in February, at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, and she was hospitalised

Kordia told Middle East Eye in April, that on the night when she fell ill with a fever, the other women she was detained with pleaded with guards to give Kordia Ibuprofen or Tylenol. Kordia said that their pleas were ignored, and she subsequently had a seizure.

“I swear, that night I thought I was going to die,” she told MEE at the time.

Kordia’s supporters publicly raised concerns about the lack of medical care she had received while detained. She was eventually hospitalised days later after the fever had passed.

Now, six months following her release, Kordia says the seizures have continued.

“I can’t take back the 368 days that were stolen from me,” she wrote on her Instagram post. “I can’t fully live a normal existence.”

“I don’t know whether I will ever heal from this trauma and sickness,” she added.

The latest development comes as advocates and medical rights organisations have increasingly sounded the alarm about the quality and availability of healthcare for detainees in ICE detention facilities.

A ‘deeply concerning’ pattern

Kordia's experience is not the only case MEE has documented in which a detainee or their family has raised concerns about medical care in ICE custody.

MEE previously interviewed 65-year-old Syrian father Iemad Saifo, who was detained by ICE in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, in July.

Saifo's family told MEE in August that ICE facility staff did not properly register some of his medication when he initially entered an ICE facility. Unable to obtain his regular medication, his health declined during his two-week detention.

His case illustrates one of the risks people face when entering detention: treatment that may be routine outside custody can be disrupted.

When Kordia previously spoke to MEE, she said that someone who was detained in the same room as her had her medication on her when she was initially taken in by ICE, but the medications had not been catalogued by the officers and remained in her purse, which they had taken away from her despite her pleas.

Medication and lack of medical care are not the only health concerns.

At Delaney Hall, a privately operated ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, detainees went on hunger strike earlier this year over what they described as poor conditions, including inadequate food and medical care.

Lawmakers who visited the facility in May said detainees described receiving small portions of food, with Congressman Jerry Nadler telling journalists that some meals reportedly contained maggots. The US Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of poor conditions.

Mahmoud Khalil sues Columbia University for allowing harassment that led to his ICE arrest Read More »

The Florence Project, an Arizona-based immigration legal services organisation, published a report in March documenting “medical neglect” in ICE detention centres.

The report said there is “an alarming increase in the number of clients who have severe medical issues or chronic illnesses and who are experiencing potentially life-threatening medical neglect in ICE custody”.

The organisation described a woman who began experiencing seizure-like convulsions after being detained, several pregnant women who had not received “appropriate prenatal care”, and a woman who was supposed to have surgery to repair a broken ankle before she was detained in early 2025. The woman's ankle is potentially still broken, and she continues to be in serious pain, among other cases involving grave medical conditions.

For Kordia, however, the question remains personal.

Sally Pillay, executive director of the Mami Chelo Foundation, told MEE that Kordia's account was “deeply concerning” and reflected what the organisation “repeatedly hears from people in ICE detention” about requests for medical attention being delayed or ignored until conditions become emergencies.

“No one should leave civil immigration detention with their health permanently damaged because they could not access timely, adequate medical care,” Pillay said.

Kordia said the seizures began only after she was detained and have continued since her release, six months on.

“Now I carry the pain of my people and my family in my chest, and the consequences of raising my voice live in my brain and body,” she wrote on Instagram.

“I will pay the price of speaking up for the rest of my life.”

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