New York, New York - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is among the politicians calling for the immediate release of Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman who has spent nearly a year locked up in an ICE facility in Texas.

Mamdani on Tuesday demanded Kordia's immediate release, calling her ongoing detention "cruel & unnecessary."

"Leqaa Kordia has spent nearly a year in an ICE prison for exercising her First Amendment rights in NYC & speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. She was hospitalized after suffering a seizure. Now she's back in detention," the New York City mayor wrote on X.

Kordia has been languishing in the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado – over 1,500 away from her home in Paterson, New Jersey – since March 2025. She was detained after being arrested in a 2024 protest near Columbia University against Israel's US-backed atrocities in Gaza, though the charges were later dropped.

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Kordia was taken into ICE custody after she voluntarily attended what she thought was a routine immigration meeting at the agency's headquarters in Newark. She was in the process of obtaining US permanent residency at the time.

Since then, a federal immigration judge has twice approved Kordia's release on bond, while the Trump administration has appealed the ruling.

Kordia's case garnered renewed attention last Friday when she was hospitalized for 72 hours after a seizure, before being returned to ICE custody. Her family has tried in vain to find out where she was hospitalized and what her current health condition is.

After visiting Kordia last week, her cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, told the Dallas Morning News, "She was lifeless."

"She told me that she literally feels like she’s slowly dying. And then … four or five days later, this happens," Abushaban said.

Several members of Congress have also spoken out in support of Kordia's immediate release from ICE detention.

"Free Leqaa Kordia!" Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan posted on X on Tuesday.

"ICE targeted her for speaking out against genocide and detained her for nearly a year in abysmal conditions as her health deteriorated. A judge has ordered her release twice. She must be released."

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Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois also took to social media to demand Kordia's release and passage of her Melt ICE Act, which aims to defund the federal agency and redirect resources for immigration detention toward community-based organizations.

In Tuesday remarks on the House floor, Representative Nellie Pou of New Jersey asked if Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons would be "willing to look into this to make sure to release my constituent."

"Why have you failed to inform her family where she was sent and the status of her condition? When will she be freed?" Pou pressed.

Lyons replied that he would "look into that."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking people to contact their members of Congress urging them to intervene on behalf of Kordia.