ICE arrests, releases student at Columbia amid uproar

What happened

Plainclothes Department of Homeland Security agents arrested Columbia University student Elmina “Ellie” Aghayeva in university-owned housing Thursday morning, sparking hours of protests and political intervention followed by the Azerbaijani national’s release hours later. The ICE agents “gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child” and “took our student” without showing “any kind of warrant,” Columbia’s acting president Claire Shipman said in a statement.

Who said what

Aghayeva’s arrest and the “dizzying sequence of events” that followed “punctured months of relative calm on Columbia’s campus” since ICE grabbed several students from inside university buildings early in President Donald Trump’s second term, The New York Times said. Some 200 people attended an “emergency rally” organized by Aghayeva’s friends and supporters after she alerted her 100,000 Instagram followers: “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.”

Aghayeva, a senior studying neuroscience and politics, “hasn’t been publicly linked to any of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that roiled Columbia’s campus” and led to the long detentions of students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, The Associated Press said. But she has “amassed a large social media following by sharing day-in-the-life videos and tips for navigating college as an immigrant.”

It wasn’t clear “why Aghayeva was released,” since DHS “often fights vigorously to keep immigrants in custody after their arrest,” The Wall Street Journal said. But New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani claimed partial credit. “I shared my concerns” about Aghayeva with Trump at an unrelated White House meeting on a housing project, he said on social media Thursday afternoon, and Trump “has just informed me that she will be released imminently.” Her release also “comes amid falling public support” for Trump’s “mass deportation campaign,” The Washington Post said.

What next?

DHS said Aghayeva’s “student visa was terminated in 2016,” ICE “placed her in removal proceedings and she has been released while she waits for her hearing.” Shipman said Columbia is providing legal aid for Aghaceya and told anyone connected to the university not to allow DHS/ICE agents into “non-public areas” without having a Public Safety officer ensure the agents have a judicial warrant or subpoena.