Since coming to the U.S. from the West Bank in 2016, Leqaa Kordia has sent thousands of dollars to family living in Palestine. Some was money she earned working as a waitress; some was from her mother and neighbors in Paterson, New Jersey, who would “pool it together to send to help out our family,” Kordia explained in a recent court affidavit.

Remittances like these are a typical part of the financial lives of immigrant families. But since Kordia, 32, was arrested in March by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration has pointed to these wire transfers as evidence that she potentially supports Hamas, in a bid to keep her at an ICE detention center in Texas.

“It was quite upsetting to hear the government claim that any transfer of money to Palestine and/or P

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