Elmina ‘Ellie’ Aghayeva, Columbia student ‘illegally’ arrested by ICE under false pretenses amid accusations the foreign student is illegally in the U.S as incident raises questions of civil rights, proper due process and lawlessness of federal agencies amid pushback by students, and school officials.
A Columbia University student who ICE alleged was residing in the U.S illegally, was released late Thursday after being detained for several hours by federal immigration authorities who school officials said made ‘misrepresentations’ about their identity to enter a college residence and arrest her.
Neuroscience student Elmina ‘Ellie’ Aghayeva, 29, was released from federal detention in New York City Thursday afternoon. The release came after NYC’s Mayor Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged President Donald Trump to let her go during his visit to the White House on unrelated issues.
‘I am safe and okay,’ Aghayeva wrote to her followers on Instagram. ‘I am so sorry but I am in complete shock over what happened and my phone is blowing up with calls from reporters. I need a little bit of time to process everything. I will come back soon. But please don’t worry. I love you all.’
DHS accused of misrepresentation and illegally detaining Columbia student
Department of Homeland Security officers ‘misrepresented’ themselves to enter a residential building to arrest Aghayeva early Thursday morning, according to university officials.
She was arrested at 6:30 a.m., according to Columbia’s acting president Claire Shipman. Agents may have ‘made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person,’ Shipman said in a statement.
‘Dhs illegally arrested me,’ Aghayeva wrote on Instagram with a photograph from the back of a vehicle Thursday morning. ‘Please help.’
The building manager and her roommate allowed officers into the apartment, according to the Independent.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, denied claims agents had impersonated the NYPD to gain access to the dorm. ‘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.’
A spokesperson for the New York police department said in a statement that the department was not involved in the arrest.
Elmina ‘Ellie’ Aghayeva legal U.S status
Aghayeva’s student visa was terminated in 2016, according to a statement from Homeland Security under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes.
Following Aghayeva’s detention, friends at the university frantically reached out to local officials for help. They said she is in her final semester at Columbia and majoring in neuroscience and political science.
Not immediately clear was the student’s current legal status in the U.S and how or why Aghayeva came to be targeted by ICE. At the time of the student’s arrest, ICE agents had no active signed judicial warrant mandating her arrest.
Aghayeva appears to have been living in the U.S. since 2016, previously living in Connecticut and Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving to New York City to attend Columbia.
Aghayeva was previously married to Garrett Blackburn, a U.S. citizen, but they separated four years ago, the nytimes reported. He said they are not in regular contact.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, DHS called Aghayeva ‘an illegal alien from Azerbaijan’ and said her student visa ‘was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes.’
Questions of due process and civil rights
Mamdani, who met with Trump, Thursday afternoon, said he had shared his concerns about the foreign student during their meeting at the White House.
During a phone call that afternoon, the president told him she would be ‘released imminently,’ according to the mayor.
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.’
‘They purposefully deceived campus housing/security to gain entry to the student’s apartment,’ Democrat borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal said. ‘The level of civil rights violations that took place is staggering.’
Columbia international student and aspiring social media influencer
Aghayeva, who is originally from Azerbaijan, frequently posts videos about life on campus and study routines on Instagram, where she has more than 109,000 followers. The aspiring social media influencer has more than 114,000 followers on TikTok.
School of General Studies Dean Lisa Rosen-Mestch announced the student’s arrest in an email to General Studies students Thursday morning, according to The Columbia Spectator.
The educator described the arrest as ‘upsetting and unsettling for our community.’
Thursday’s 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 free speech.
Trump administration ICE round up under scrutiny
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.
The arrest also follows campus protests demanding the university maintain stronger protections for international students against federal immigration agents at the university.
Columbia has stressed that ‘all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena’ access nonpublic areas of the university, including housing and classrooms and other buildings that require a university ID. Administrative warrants — which are issued internally by federal agencies — are not sufficient, Shipman wrote.
‘Do not allow them to enter or accept service of a warrant or subpoena,’ she said.
News of Aghayeva’s arrest led to NYC Council member Shaun Abreu stating, ‘ICE has no place in our schools and universities. These activities do not make our city or country safer, but rather drive mistrust and danger.’
Offered House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), ‘The American people are demanding an end to the ICE lawlessness being unleashed on our communities.’
The student’s arrest is the latest in a series of tumultuous events in the U.S involving ICE, including the shooting deaths of two U.S citizens in Minneapolis protesting what many decry as federal agents ‘illegal’ rounding up of migrants.
