NYPD shared a Palestinian protester’s info with ICE. Now it’s evidence in her deportation case

NEW YORK: New York City’s police department provided federal immigration authorities with an internal record about a Palestinian woman who they arrested at a protest, which the Trump administration is now using as evidence in its bid to deport her, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The report — shared by the NYPD in March — includes a summary of information in the department’s files about Leqaa Kordia, a New Jersey resident who was arrested at a protest outside Columbia University last spring. It lists her home address, date of birth and an officer’s two-sentence account of the arrest.
Its distribution to federal authorities offers a glimpse into behind-the-scenes cooperation between the NYPD and the Trump administration, and raises questions about the city’s compliance with sanctuary laws that prohibit police from assisting with immigration enforcement efforts.
Kordia, 32, was among the earliest people jailed in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on noncitizens who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
She was detained during a voluntary check-in with immigration officials in Newark, New Jersey, on March 13, then flown to an immigration jail in Texas. Her arrest was announced by the US Department of Homeland Security the next day in a statement that cited an expired visa and her role in “pro-Hamas protests.”
It remains unclear how immigration authorities were able to learn about Kordia’s presence at the protest near Columbia last April.
At the demonstration, police cited Kordia with disorderly conduct. But the charge was dismissed weeks later and the case sealed.
City law generally prohibits police from sharing information about arrests with federal immigration officials, although there are exceptions for criminal investigations.
On March 14, an NYPD officer generated a four-page report on Kordia and shared it with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
In an emailed statement, an NYPD spokesperson said the department “received a request from a federal agency related to a criminal investigation and shared relevant information in accordance with our sanctuary city policies.”
“The NYPD does not participate in programs that are designed for visa revocation or any civil immigration matter,” the statement added.
The department declined to say what the investigation entailed.
Inquiries to the DHS and ICE were not returned.
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates said the document reflected a worrisome level of information-sharing between the city and the federal government, which has conflated criticism of Israel with support for Hamas, a US-designated terror group.
“The intention of the sanctuary laws is to protect against this kind of collusion and pretextual information sharing,” said Meghna Philip, the director of special litigation at the Legal Aid Society.
“It seems to be a clear violation of the law,” Philip added, “and raises questions about what guardrails, if any, the NYPD has around sharing information with a federal government that is seeking to criminalize speech.”