photo credit: NPR

Leqaa Kordia is Free — and the Struggle Continues

BY ROBIAH DARWISH - POSTED 3/18/2026

After a year in ICE detention, Palestinian protester and political prisoner Leqaa Kordia is free.

Leqaa walked out of detention this week on bond after enduring the longest imprisonment of all Student Intifada protesters targeted in the U.S. crackdown on pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protest. Her release is a victory for everyone who organized, spoke out, fundraised, supported her loved ones and refused to let her be disappeared into the immigration detention system.

This victory belongs to the movement.

For a year, the U.S. government tried to cage Leqaa for standing with Palestine. Her detention was part of a broader campaign of repression aimed at students, immigrants and all those who have taken to the streets and campuses to oppose genocide and demand liberation. Leqaa’s case made clear what so many organizers already knew: the crackdown on the student movement does not end with suspensions, arrests or cleared encampments. It extends into detention centers, immigration courts and the full machinery of state punishment.

Leqaa’s freedom is proof that sustained organizing works. Every rally, every statement, every court watch, every phone zap, every donation and every act of political solidarity helped make this moment possible. When the state tried to isolate her, the movement answered with collective struggle.

But Leqaa is not fully free. She has been released on bond, and her case continues. We recommit now to defending her continued freedom and to fighting every attempt to criminalize those who organize for Palestine.

We also affirm that Leqaa’s case is not separate from the struggle of Palestinian political prisoners everywhere. More than 9,300 Palestinians are currently imprisoned in Israeli prisons, where they are being starved, tortured and denied basic needs, according to organizers and prisoner solidarity advocates. As Israel advances even more brutal measures against Palestinian prisoners, we must heed the calls coming from inside the prisons and escalate our solidarity.

It is our collective responsibility to carry forward the Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for dignity, to expose the brutality of imprisonment and occupation, and to hold every guilty and complicit actor accountable.

Leqaa’s release is not the end. It is a call to deepen the fight.

Free Leqaa. Defend the student movement. Stand with Palestinian political prisoners. Until every prisoner is free, the struggle continues.