Federal agents detain Columbia University student in campus housing

By Maria Tsvetkova

NEW YORK, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they were searching for a missing person when they entered a Columbia University residential building on Thursday and detained a student, Columbia acting President Claire Shipman said.

DHS identified the student as Elmina Aghayeva from Azerbaijan and said she was in the U.S. illegally. She was detained at about 6:30 a.m., Shipman said.

“Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person,'” Shipman said, adding that law enforcement agents need a judicial warrant or subpoena to enter non-public university areas, including housing and classrooms.

DHS said the building manager and Aghayeva’s roommate let its agents in. The department did not respond to a question about whether agents had misrepresented their intentions.

“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,” DHS said in an emailed statement.

Attempts by Reuters to reach Aghayeva were not immediately successful.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, in a social media post, accused immigration agents of lying.

“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,” Hochul said on X.

Shipman said that when law enforcement seeks entry to such areas, they should be asked to wait for campus security to coordinate the university’s response.

Even during President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown, arrests of students on campuses or in campus housing remain rare. 

The last arrests on the Columbia University campus occurred about a year ago, after pro-Palestinian protests, and included Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent activist who was released from a jail for immigrants three months later and continues to challenge in court efforts to revoke his U.S. lawful permanent residency green card and deport him.

A post at about 8 a.m. on Thursday on the Instagram account ellharve, identified in the profile as a scientist at Columbia, showed a photograph of the knees in jeans of someone sitting in a car and said: “DHS illegally arrested me. Please help.”

The university newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, identified the account holder as Ellie Aghayeva, a Columbia neuroscience researcher. The Instagram account has over 100,000 followers and posts about such products as AI study tools and glasses with a real-time translation feature.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; editing by Donna Bryson and Bill Berkrot)