Exclusive: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib demands Leqaa Kordia’s release, says ‘I’m afraid she’s going to die in there’

On Friday, March 6, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the first and only Palestinian in Congress, visited Leqaa Kordia at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas and called for her immediate release.

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Kordia, who is the last remaining Columbia protester in detention, was arrested on March 13, 2025 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is fast approaching her first full year in detention as her health reportedly worsens.

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Tlaib said she traveled to Texas after learning Kordia had a seizure in detention; she said she later found out it was because "she's malnourished and suffering from sleep deprivation."

After the visit Tlaib said, "If Kordia is not released soon, I'm afraid she's going to die in there."

Tlaib described a tour of the facility with the warden, the assistant field director, the supervisor for deportation and other officials and said the medical unit was crowded and chaotic.

She relayed Kordia's account of repeated poor food—"oatmeal with a slice of bread, no fruit"—and requests for vitamins because "I'm malnourished,"

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Tlaib quoted Kordia saying detainees received a pillow case with no pillow and had to stuff clothes into the pillow case to sleep.

Tlaib said lights were left on, detainees suffered sleep deprivation, there were about "58 [detainees per unit]," and that day was "the first day in three months that they let them go outside," while many detainees remained afraid to speak up.

Tlaib said Kordia and other detainees avoid or delay seeking medical care because it is a "hassle," and recounted an instance where a guard reported a detainee with a fever but was told to have the detainee make an appointment.

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Tlaib criticized the facility's response to complaints about food and medical care, saying staff claimed to like the food even as she watched numerous DoorDash deliveries arrive in the lobby.

She called the LaSalle corrections facility (Prairieland) "probably the worst one I've seen," describing a crowded medical unit lobby with no place to sit and persistent chaos.

Tlaib accused a profit-driven detention system and congressional corruption of keeping people detained instead of allowing bond or deportation, saying private companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic profit from confinement and that some members of Congress accept donations from those companies.

She said she believed some decisions to keep detainees in facilities carried "the smell of Stephen Miller" and cited instances she attributed to higher-level intervention;

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Leqaa's lawyers have said she has been targeted by Trump's DHS for her support for Palestine and her identity as a Palestinian.

Tlaib noted there are reportedly three people in Michigan who want to "self-deport" and expressed concern that DHS is not deporting them because it is profitable to keep them detained; she also said there are "not one, but two court orders from the judge saying, 'Release her,' and they haven't released her."

Leqaa Kordia's next immigration hearing will be at 11:30 am CT on Friday, March 13, the anniversary of her arrest.