Press Contact: Golnaz Fakhimi | [email protected]

DALLAS, TX  — For a second time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) invoked an automatic stay to keep Leqaa Kordia, a 32-year-old Palestinian Muslim woman, in immigration confinement, despite an immigration judge’s ordering her release again in a bond hearing yesterday.

Since March 14, 2025, ICE has been confining Ms. Kordia unlawfully in Prairieland Detention Facility for speaking out about the ongoing genocide in Gaza that has killed nearly 200 of her family members. Ms. Kordia has been separated from her family and community in New Jersey more than 1,500 miles away. Earlier this month, she filed an updated petition in a federal lawsuit seeking her immediate release, which incorporated new evidence showing the administration’s policy of targeting, arresting, surveilling, confining, and seeking the deportation of noncitizens who have expressed support for Palestinian lives and freedom.

Yesterday, for the second time, an immigration judge ordered Ms. Kordia’s release on $20,000 bond that DHS prevented her family from promptly paying. Instead, DHS immediately reinvoked an automatic stay—which could keep her confined up to another 4 months—after they declined to provide any evidence justifying her continued confinement, chose not to cross-examine her, conceded Ms. Kordia proved her release would not pose a danger, and did not offer a closing argument opposing bond. 

Federal Magistrate Judge Rebecca Rutherford previously found the automatic stay provision likely unconstitutional. She reasoned that, “[b]ecause the stay takes effect without requiring DHS to meet—or even consider—any threshold standard and Petitioner has no opportunity to challenge the imposition of the stay, there are no procedural safeguards to prevent prolonged, unwarranted detention pending DHS’s appeal.” To avoid her ruling, ICE undertook procedural gamesmanship, and it’s doing so, again. 

Today, the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), Muslim Advocates (MA), the CLEAR Project, and Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel (WKPS) filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order on behalf of Ms. Kordia. The Motion asks the federal court to release Ms. Kordia immediately, so she can reunite with her loved ones. 

“Leqaa should be back with her family in New Jersey. Instead, the government has utilized the automatic stay provision yet again to keep her confined without any process whatsoever,” said Travis Fife, Staff Attorney, Texas Civil Rights Project. “In no other legal context could the government offer so little and concede so much, yet confine someone inhumanely for months.”

“To try to silence Leqaa and the broader movement for Palestinian lives, the administration has been weaponizing immigration confinement and procedural maneuvers, thumbing its nose at courts in the process,” said Sadaf Hasan, a staff attorney with Muslim Advocates. “Together with Leqaa, we’ll keep fighting for the First Amendment right to condemn the Gaza genocide, which has killed nearly 200 members of Leqaa’s own family.” 

“For over five months, Leqaa has been unlawfully confined—ripped from her family, her community, and her life in New Jersey,” said Amal Thabateh, a staff attorney with CLEAR. “Despite two separate orders from an immigration judge allowing Leqaa’s release, the government chose instead to escalate its efforts to silence and punish her. This is a targeted attack—not just on Leqaa, but on all those who dare to speak out for Palestinian liberation.”

“The government’s latest attempt to once again thwart Leqaa’s release from confinement is punitive, cruel and clearly ideological,” said Sarah Sherman-Stokes, Associate Director and Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.  “In no other court could the government do so little and still succeed in depriving someone of their liberty over a judge’s order. Leqaa deserves to be home in New Jersey with her family, not punished for speaking out about the rights of Palestinians.”