‘Human tragedy’: Leqaa Kordia on how ICE jail echoes life in occupied Palestine

In her first print interview since release, the Palestinian immigrant says after year in custody, she sees it as her duty to denounce ICE detention in the US

A Palestinian woman who was released last month after spending a year in a Texas immigration detention center told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that she sees “a lot of similarities” between the treatment of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and that of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Leqaa Kordia, who was detained by ICE following her arrest at a protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, says that she will continue to speak up about the rights of Palestinians, but that she now also sees it as her duty to denounce the “human tragedy” of immigration detention in the US.