The Columbia University student arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday morning has been released, according to social media. The student, Elmina Aghayeva, posted a story to her Instagram account in which she confirmed her release. “I just got out a little while ago,” the statement reads. “I am safe and okay. In an uber otw [on the way] home.”
In her post, Aghayeva said that she is currently being inundated with calls from reporters. She writes: “I need a little bit of time to process everything. I will come back soon. But please don’t worry.”
Aghayeva’s post was made shortly after New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, confirmed that Donald Trump had agreed to release Aghayeva, following a previously unannounced meeting between the two leaders.
“In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning,” Mamdani wrote on X. Trump then informed the mayor that she would be “released imminently”.
Later on Thursday evening, the acting president of the elite institution in New York City, Claire Shipman, issued a video clarifying how Aghayeva’s arrest happened.
“Shortly after 6am, five federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security – without any kind of warrant – entered an off-campus Columbia residential building. The agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child. They made their way to the apartment of the student they were targeting with this same story. Our security cameras captured the agents in the hallway, showing pictures of the alleged missing child. Once inside the apartment, it became clear they had misrepresented themselves,” Shipman explained.
She went on to share that a public safety officer had repeatedly asked the agents for a search warrant, which was not produced, and asked whether he could call his boss. The agents declined and Aghayeva was taken.
“This was a frightening and fast-moving situation and utterly unacceptable for our students and staff,” Shipman continued, adding: “Let me be clear: misrepresenting identity and other facts to gain access to a residential building is a breach of protocol. All law enforcement agencies are obligated to follow established legal, ethical standards.”
Shipman also emphasized that the school has never provided DHS or ICE assistance in arresting or taking their students.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, denied that agents impersonated the NYPD. “The Homeland Security Investigators verbally identified themselves and visibly wore badges around their necks,” they said in a statement. “They did NOT and would not identify themselves as NYPD.”
The DHS confirmed the student’s identity but appeared to suggest she was no longer a student.
“ICE arrested Elmina Aghayeva, an illegal alien from Azerbaijan, whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment. She has no pending appeals or applications with DHS.”
A spokesperson for the New York police department said in a statement that the department was not involved in the arrest.
Following Aghayeva’s detention, friends at the university frantically reached out to local officials for help. They said she was in her final semester at Columbia and majoring in neuroscience and political science.
According to a request for help sent to local officials by Aghayeva’s friends, which was also shared with the Guardian, Aghayeva sent an urgent message on Thursday to a group chat saying: “ICE is in my house. They are trying to take me away.” The students then contacted a building security officer whom they say facilitated federal agents’ access to Aghayeva’s apartment.
Eli Northrup, an attorney who works as a public defender and is running for office in the state assembly representing Columbia’s district, spoke with some of the students’ friends on Thursday morning and criticised what he couched as Columbia’s lapse in security.
“This is a massive institutional failure by Columbia, whose number one priority must be protecting its students,” Northrup wrote in a message to the Guardian. “No public safety officer should be admitting law enforcement of any kind into their buildings without thorough vetting.”
His criticism of Columbia was echoed by Shayoni Mitra, a Barnard professor who lives in the neighborhood and said that local residents have been training for months to protect their neighbors from ICE.
“We are trying to keep each other and our neighbors safe. But why are Columbia public safety officers not trained to stop ICE?” she told the Guardian. “It is simply not good enough for President Shipman to say the agents used misrepresentation to gain entry to the building. Why did no one ask to see a signed judicial warrant?”
The arrest came nearly a year after upheaval on campus after immigration officials detained Columbia students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both Palestinians with valid immigration status, in a crackdown on dissent against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Trump administration detained them and other foreign scholars whom it accused of no crimes but who had been outspoken in the cause of Palestinian rights. In a blistering opinion issued in September, a Boston federal judge found that their detention was unconstitutional and designed to chill speech.
Thursday’s incident sent fresh shock waves through the university’s campus. Dozens of students and faculty gathered for an emergency protest outside the university’s gates on Thursday afternoon, calling for Aghayeva’s release and condemning Columbia for allowing federal agents into their facilities.
Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, issued a statement accusing ICE of lying in order to seize Aghayeva. “Let’s be clear about what happened: ICE agents didn’t have the proper warrant, so they lied to gain access to a student’s private residence,” she wrote on X. “I’ve proposed a bill that would ban ICE from entering sensitive locations like schools and dorms. Let’s get it passed now.”
Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who was arrested by ICE agents while escorting immigrants to court last year, also condemned the detention.
“Yet again, ICE is using blatantly illegal trickery to circumvent judicial warrant requirements and abduct a student. These are the tactics of brownshirts,” Lander wrote in a social media post. “That’s why I’ve long been calling to abolish ICE. And why Congress should not grant them one more penny. This lawlessness has to end.”
