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A Columbia University student was detained Thursday morning by immigration agents who misrepresented themselves by saying they were looking for a missing child to get access to a residential building, the university’s top administrator said.
Elmina Aghayeva, who is from Azerbaijan, was later released, but the school’s acting president, Claire Shipman, and others condemned the agents’ actions in the alleged 6 a.m. incident in an off-campus Columbia building.
“This was a frightening and fast-moving situation and utterly unacceptable for our students and staff,” Shipman said in a statement.
The Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Aghayeva and said her student visa had been terminated in 2016 “for failing to attend classes.”
“The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment,” the DHS statement said.
Aghayeva said Thursday afternoon in an Instagram story that she had been released and was on her way home. “I am safe and okay,” she wrote, adding that she was in “complete shock over what happened.”
The hours before she was released were marked by growing outrage and concern over how she was arrested.
Shipman said five federal agents entered the off-campus Columbia building “without any kind of warrant.”
“The agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child,” she said. “They made their way to the apartment of the student they were targeting with the same story.”
A representative from DHS said its agents wore badges around their necks and verbally identified themselves.
Shipman said the agents flashed a photo of the purported missing child, which was captured on security video, as part of the false story. She also said the agents did not show a university public safety officer any warrant.
“A public safety officer arrived, asked multiple times for a warrant, which was not produced, and asked for time to call his boss, which was not given,” Shipman said. “The agents took our student.”
Public officials were alarmed over the university officials’ allegation, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani, who is in Washington, wrote on X that he spoke with President Donald Trump about concerns over the arrest.
“He has just informed me that she will be released imminently,” Mamdani wrote shortly before Aghayeva shared news of her release.
Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the detention of the student and said “a rogue deportation agenda is operating with zero transparency and even less accountability.”
She also referred to Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind refugee who was found dead in Buffalo, New York, after authorities said Customs and Border Protection left him at a coffee shop.
“Yesterday, a blind father was released from federal custody and left alone on the street to find his way home. He never made it back to his family. This morning, ICE agents misled campus security and took a young woman from her college dorm without a judicial warrant,” Hochul said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the allegations as “unacceptable” on X. He said his office was working closely with Columbia and authorities on the matter.
“It is outrageous that ICE agents falsely represented themselves to arrest a Columbia graduate student by entering university-owned housing without a warrant,” he wrote.
Aghayeva is an international student with a visa, according to a statement her friends released through a faculty organization, the American Association of University Professors. She is in her senior year, majoring in neuroscience and political science.
The statement added that she was taken from her Columbia housing building on West 121st Street.
Aghayeva’s lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition with the Southern District of New York on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News. It says that she entered the U.S. in or around 2016 on a visa and that no reason was given for her detention.
An attorney for Aghayeva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several student groups, including Columbia Student Apartheid Divest, called for an emergency rally “to protest the detention of an undergrad from a Columbia building.” The demonstration outside the university gates drew about 100 people, according to the college newspaper, the Columbia Spectator.
In the letter, Shipman reminded the campus community that law enforcement agents must have judicial warrants or judicial subpoenas to access nonpublic areas of the school. If law enforcement requests access, she said, students, faculty and staff members should ask the agents to wait and then contact the university’s public safety office.
“Do not allow them to enter or accept service of a warrant or subpoena,” Shipman urged.
“An administrative warrant is not sufficient” to access nonpublic areas of the campus, she added.
NBC News has reported that an internal ICE memo in May said agents are allowed to forcibly enter a home using an administrative warrant if a judge has issued a “final order of removal.” That is a departure from previous norms, in which a warrant signed by a judge or a magistrate was necessary for agents to forcibly enter homes.
The university said in a letter sent to the campus Thursday that it was deploying additional patrols and staffing to residential buildings.
Columbia residential staff members were instructed, in nonemergency situations, not to allow any law enforcement entry into its buildings without Columbia Public Safety present and guidance from the Office of the General Counsel.
Columbia University has become a political flash point over the past two years amid protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, high-profile ICE arrests, and criticism of the university from Trump himself.
The Trump administration ordered the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants last year after he accused the university of failing to act “in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
A letter was sent to the Columbia University trustees and the former interim president laying out conditions to restore its federal funding, which included a ban on masks on campus and comprehensive reform of its admissions “to confirm with federal law and policy.”
The university acquiesced to the demands last year to restore its grant funding. It also agreed to pay a $200 million settlement to the government to resolve allegations that it violated anti-discrimination laws.
According to the university, the agreement preserved “Columbia’s autonomy and authority over faculty hiring, admissions, and academic decision-making.”
Homeland Security agents also executed search warrants on two Columbia University residences last year, though no arrests were made at the time. The search came days after immigration authorities arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student at the time.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident, was released in June after three months in immigration detention following widespread protests and a legal battle to keep him in the U.S. Attorneys for Khalil argued that his detention was a targeted retaliation for his pro-Palestinian views and, therefore, unconstitutional.
Khalil’s status remains uncertain after an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling last month, saying he had to continue to move through the immigration court process before he could challenge whether the detention violated his rights.
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Elmina Aghayeva was detained at Columbia
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