A Columbia University student was arrested on Thursday by federal immigration officers who apparently misrepresented themselves by posing as New York police officers looking for a missing child in order to to gain entry to a residential building to make the apprehension.
The acting president of the elite institution in New York City, Claire Shipman, wrote in a statement sent to the wider Columbia community on Thursday that the university was working to gather more information on the incident earlier that morning.
She did not identify the student or comment on their immigration status but said the university was working to reach the family and providing legal support.
A short time later, the Manhattan borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, wrote in a social media post that “ICE agents impersonated NYPD with fake badges and a phony missing persons bulletin for a 5 year old girl”, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“They purposefully deceived campus housing/security to gain entry to the student’s apartment,” he added. “The level of civil rights violations that took place is staggering.”
A spokesperson for the New York police department said in a statement that the department “had no involvement in the federal operation”.
However, the student in question was understood to be Ellie Aghayeva, an undergraduate student who posted a photo that appeared to show her own legs, possibly in a vehicle, in an Instagram story with the message: “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help”.
Shipman’s statement continued: “Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person’.”
She added: “It is important to reiterate that all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to access non-public areas of the university. An administrative warrant is not sufficient.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following Aghayeva’s detention friends at the university frantically reached out to local officials for help. They confirmed she is an international student on a student visa and said they believe she holds Russian citizenship. They said she is in her final semester at Columbia and majoring in neuroscience and political science.
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. They should be doing everything in their power to get Ellie released immediately. We won’t stop fighting until she is.”
There was no indication early on Thursday afternoon of why Aghayeva was taken into the custody of federal officers.
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. The government argued that their advocacy posed a threat to US national security.
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 and prompted plans for an emergency vigil on campus for noon.
In a joint statement, the New York city council speaker, Julie Menin, and the council majority leader, Shaun Abreu, condemned the student’s detention.
“ICE has no place in our schools and universities,” they wrote. “These activities do not make our city or country safer, but rather drive mistrust and danger.”
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.”
A spokesperson for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The mayor made an unannounced trip to Washington on Thursday to meet with President Trump.
