A Columbia University student was arrested Thursday morning by immigration agents after misrepresenting himself by saying he was looking for a missing child to gain entry to a residential building, a top university 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 6 a.m. incident at a Columbia campus building.
“This is a horrific and fast-moving situation and is completely unacceptable to our students and staff,” Shipman said in a statement.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Aghayeva and her student visa was revoked in 2016 for “failure to attend classes,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
“The building manager and her roommate allowed officers into the apartment,” the DHS statement said.
Aghayeva said in an Instagram story on Thursday afternoon that she had been discharged and was on her way home. “I am safe and well,” he wrote, adding that he was “in complete shock about what happened.”
The hours before her release were marked by growing outrage and concern over how she was detained.
Five federal agents entered the off-campus Columbia building “without any sort of warrant,” Shipman said.
“The agents gained entry by saying the police were looking for a missing child,” he said. “He made his way to the apartment of the student he was targeting with the same story.”
A representative for DHS said its agents wore badges around their necks and identified themselves verbally.
Agents flashed a photo of the missing child captured on security video as part of the false story, Shipman said. Agents did not show the university’s public safety officer any warrants, he said.
“The 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 granted,” Shipman said. “Agents took our student.”
Public officials, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, are concerned about the accusations against university officials. Mamdani, who is in Washington, has expressed concerns about the arrest with President Donald Trump, wrote in Ex.
Mamdani wrote that shortly before Aghayeva shared the news of her release, “she informed me that she would be released imminently.”
Gov. Cathy Hochul condemned the student’s arrest and said the “rogue deportation agenda is operating with zero transparency and little accountability.”
He was referring 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 in 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 returned to his family. This morning, ICE agents bypassed campus security and took a young woman from her college dorm without a judicial warrant,” Hochul said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., described the allegations at X as “unacceptable.” He said his office is working closely with Columbia and officials.
“It is outrageous that ICE agents misrepresented 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, her friends released through the American Association of University Professors. He is in his senior year, majoring in neuroscience and political science.
She was taken from her Columbia apartment building on West 121st Street, the statement added.
Aghayeva’s lawyers 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 she entered the US on a visa in or around 2016 and no reason was given for her detention.
A lawyer for Aghayeva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several student groups, including Columbia Student Racism, have called for an emergency rally “to protest the arrest of an undergraduate student from a Columbia building.” A 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 enter non-public areas of the school. If law enforcement requests access, students, faculty and staff members should ask the agent to wait and then contact the university’s public safety office, he said.
“Do not allow them to enter or receive service of a warrant or subpoena,” Shipman urged.
“An administrative warrant is not sufficient” to enter non-public areas of campus, he said.
An internal ICE memo from May said agents were allowed to forcibly enter a home using an administrative warrant if a judge had issued a “final order of removal,” NBC News reported. That’s a departure from previous norms, in which agents needed a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate to forcefully enter homes.
The university said in a letter sent to the campus on Thursday that it is deploying additional patrols and staff to residential buildings.
Columbia Residential staff members were instructed not to allow any law enforcement access to its buildings during emergencies, without guidance from Columbia Public Safety and the Office of General Counsel.
Columbia University has been a political flashpoint 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 a $400 million federal grant last year after accusing the university of failing to act in the face of “persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
A letter was sent to Columbia University’s trustees and former interim president laying out conditions for restoring its federal funding, including a ban on face masks on campus and a comprehensive overhaul of its admissions to “conform with federal law and policy.”
The university agreed to demands last year to restore its grant. It also agreed to pay the government $200 million in damages to resolve allegations that it violated anti-discrimination laws.
According to the university, the agreement preserved “Columbia’s autonomy and authority over faculty recruitment, admissions and academic decision-making.”
Homeland Security agents executed search warrants on two Columbia University residences last year, but no arrests were made at the time. The search comes days after immigration officials detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was a graduate student at Columbia University at the time.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident, was released in June after three months in immigration detention after widespread protests and a legal battle to keep him in the US Attorney for Khalil argued his detention was targeted retaliation for his pro-Palestinian views and therefore unconstitutional.
Khalil’s status is uncertain after an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling last month, saying he must proceed through the immigration court process before questioning whether the detention violated his rights.
