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Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security entered a Columbia University residential building early Thursday morning and detained a student, the university said — allegedly gaining access by impersonating police officers and showing building staff a fake missing persons flyer for a five-year-old girl.
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Acting President Claire Shipman said in a letter to the Columbia community that agents entered the building at approximately 6:30 a.m. and that the university believes the agents “misrepresented themselves” to gain entry under the pretense of searching for a missing person.The detained student, Ellie Aghayeva, is a senior majoring in neuroscience and political science, according to The New York Times. She is an international student with a visa who was taken from her Columbia-owned apartment on West 121st Street. Shortly after her arrest, she posted a one-second video to her Instagram account (which has over 100,000 followers) from the back of a vehicle with the caption: “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.”
State Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat representing Upper Manhattan, said university officials told him the agents arrived in plain clothes and presented themselves as NYPD officers. A building superintendent let them in after they showed him a poster for a missing child, Lasher said. A roommate then opened the door to Aghayeva’s apartment. Once the superintendent realized the visit had nothing to do with a missing person, he called campus security, which contacted the NYPD.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal went further, saying the agents had displayed a “phony missing persons bulletin” for a five-year-old girl and carried fake badges.
“They purposefully deceived campus housing/security to gain entry to the student’s apartment,” he said. “The level of civil rights violations that took place is staggering.”
Columbia’s policy requires all law enforcement to present a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena before entering non-public areas of campus, including housing and classrooms. An administrative warrant does not meet that standard, and the university indicated that no judicial warrant was used in this case.
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A lawyer for Aghayeva filed an emergency petition in Manhattan federal court Thursday seeking her release.City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Council Member Shaun Abreu, who represents the district that includes Columbia, issued a joint statement condemning the detention. “ICE has no place in our schools and universities,” they wrote. “These activities do not make our city or country safer, but rather drive mistrust and danger.”
The Department of Homeland Security said it was preparing a statement about the operation.
By noon Thursday, roughly 100 people had gathered on the sidewalk outside Columbia’s Broadway gates to protest the arrest, holding signs reading “Abolish ICE” and “Immigrants are New York.”
The incident marks the latest in a string of immigration enforcement actions connected to Columbia. Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate with a green card, was detained in the lobby of a university dormitory in March 2025 and is still fighting deportation. A month later, student Mohsen Mahdawi was detained when he appeared for a citizenship interview in Vermont; an immigration judge blocked his deportation last week. Another student, Ranjani Srinivasan, fled to Canada last March after federal officers showed up at her university apartment building looking for her.
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