Federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security misrepresented themselves to gain entry to a Columbia University dormitory and arrest a student early Thursday morning, according to university acting president Claire Shipman.
The agents entered campus housing in Morningside Heights at around 6:30 a.m., Shipman said in a statement Thursday morning. “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.
While Shipman did not name the arrested student, Columbia undergraduate Ellie Aghayeva filed a habeas corpus petition asking a federal judge to order her release later Thursday morning, according to court documents.
Aghayeva, who is from Azerbaijan, studies neuroscience and political science and came to the United States on a visa in 2016, according to her petition. DHS officials “represented that they did not have a warrant for Petitioner,” the filing states. The agents instead “represented they were searching for a missing person to gain entry.”
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Aghayeva posted an urgent Instagram story that read, “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.”
An unnamed DHS official confirmed ICE had arrested Aghayeva, calling her “an illegal alien from Azerbaijan, whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes.” The statement said “the building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment” and noted “she has no pending appeals or applications with DHS.” The statement did not address Shipman’s contention that officers misidentified themselves to gain access.
Shipman emphasized in her statement 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 CUID swipe access. An administrative warrant is not sufficient.”
As news of the arrest spread Thursday, faculty, students and demonstrators gathered outside Columbia’s gates to protest the arrest and the university’s response.
“I’m pretty appalled that they were even able to get on our campus because they’re always insisting that our safety is their number one priority and we have pretty crazy security on campus, so I just don’t understand how they were able to get on campus,” said an undergraduate student named Hope, who declined to provide her last name. “This should not have happened.”
Melanie Wall, a professor of biostatistics who joined the demonstrators, said faculty had pressed administration for more safeguards for international students since ICE arrests last year targeting student activists. “Everybody who’s done any ICE watch training knows that they’re going to lie. Our security can’t ask the right questions and actually check for ID?” Wall said.
Wall criticized Shipman’s statement about warrant requirements, saying, “We don’t let people on campus without a warrant, blah, blah, blah. That’s literally what happened. So it’s just classic gaslighting.”
The arrest follows a string of similar incidents last year in which DHS and ICE agents targeted students and others who participated in campus encampments protesting the war in Gaza in 2024. As reported in a previous case at Brooklyn Federal Jail, ICE has significantly expanded its detention capacity, raising concerns about the scale of immigration enforcement operations in the region.
ICE agents entered Mahmoud Khalil’s campus housing and arrested him last March, according to the source material. Khalil spent 104 days in ICE detention before a federal judge ordered his release while his immigration case continues. Khalil became a prominent figure in the 2024 campus protests.
Aghayeva’s Instagram account, which has more than 100,000 followers, focuses mostly on her life as a Columbia student, according to reports. Unlike students targeted in previous enforcement actions, her social media presence does not appear connected to campus activism.
