Friday, March 14, 2025 6:35PM
The arrest comes after the detainment of Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil.
NEW YORK (WABC) — Another student who was involved in the protests at Columbia University has been arrested by agents from Homeland Security Investigations, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Leqaa Korda was arrested by HSI for allegedly overstaying her expired visa which terminated on January 26, 2022. She also allegedly was arrested in 2024 for her involvement in the protests, according to DHS.
Korda, according to DHS, is a Palestinian from the West Bank.
The announcement comes after the recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who helped lead student protests at the school and is facing deportation.
Khalil was rushed from New York to Louisiana last weekend in a manner that left the outspoken Columbia University graduate student feeling like he was being kidnapped, his lawyers wrote in an updated lawsuit seeking his immediate release.
The lawyers described in detail what happened to the Palestinian activist as he was flown to Louisiana by agents he said never identified themselves. Once there, he was left to sleep in a bunker with no pillow or blanket as top U.S. officials cheered the effort to deport a man his lawyers say sometimes became the “public face” of student protests on Columbia’s campus against Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first “of many to come,” vowing on social media to deport students he said engage in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
DHS also says another student involved in the protests used the CBP Home app, which DHS just rolled out to make it easier for those in the U.S. illegally to self deport.
Ranjani Srinivasan, an urban planning student at Columbia and Indian citizen used CBP Home to self deport, DHS says.
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. I am glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home app to self-deport.”
The latest details come after Columbia University says it has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring, and had temporarily revoked the diplomas of some students who have since graduated.
The university did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, suspended or had their degree revoked.
(ABC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
RELATED | Arrests made at Trump Tower protest after Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil detained by ICE
Lauren Glassberg has the latest updates in Midtown.
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