Columbia University says US immigration agents lied to detain student

Administrators say agents ‘made misrepresentations’, claimed missing person search to detain woman at school building.Published On 26 Feb 2026Condemnation has poured in after Columbia University in New York said United States immigration enforcement agents “made misrepresentations” to gain access to one of the school’s residential buildings to detain a student.A statement from Columbia University’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entered the building about 6:30am (13:30 GMT) on Thursday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Near-blind Rohingya refugee dies after US agents left him far from homelist 2 of 3Mahmood Mamdani says Palestine helped motivate son Zohran’s mayoral runlist 3 of 3US court orders Trump admin to restore Rumeysa Ozturk’s student statusend of list“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. “We are working to gather more details.”She added that “all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to access non-public areas of the University, including housing, classrooms, and areas requiring [identification badge] swipe access.“An administrative warrant is not sufficient,” she said, referring to an internal document that the DHS has used to justify searches for undocumented immigrants that are not approved by a judge. Advocacy groups have called the practice a violation of constitutionally protected rights.The Columbia statement did not identify the detained student, but the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, said Ellie Aghayeva, a neuroscience researcher, had been targeted.At 3:18pm local time (17:00 GMT), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced he had spoken with President Donald Trump about the situation.“I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva,” Mamdani wrote of his meeting with Trump. “He has just informed me that she will be released imminently.”