ICE agents used false pretenses to enter campus dorm — and the mayor made a personal call to the Oval Office
Federal Agents, a Dormitory Door, and a Mayor on the Phone
The morning of February 26, 2026, began with a knock on a door in a Columbia University dormitory. What followed — the detention of a student, the intervention of New York City’s mayor, and a phone call from the president of the United States — laid bare the volatile intersection of immigration enforcement, local politics, and federal power that is now a daily feature of life in New York City.
Elaina Aghayeva, a senior at Columbia’s School of General Studies and a citizen of Azerbaijan, was taken into federal immigration custody Thursday morning by agents from the Department of Homeland Security. According to Aghayeva’s attorneys and Columbia’s acting president, the agents gained access to her dormitory building by claiming they were police officers searching for a missing child. The school said it had video of agents showing a photo of a child to people in the hallway as a pretext for entry. A DHS spokesperson denied that agents had misrepresented themselves, stating they “did not and would not identify themselves as NYPD.” The conflicting accounts remain unresolved.
Mamdani Raises the Case in the Oval Office
At the time Aghayeva was being detained, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was on a train to Washington D.C. for what would turn out to be a previously unannounced meeting with President Trump. The meeting had been arranged before Trump’s State of the Union address on February 25 and was focused primarily on a major housing proposal for Sunnyside Yards in Queens. But when news of Aghayeva’s detention reached the mayor’s team, the agenda expanded.
During their Oval Office conversation, Mamdani raised Aghayeva’s case directly with Trump and urged the president to order her release. He described the use of deceptive entry tactics as a serious concern. Not long after the meeting ended, Trump called Mamdani to inform him that Aghayeva would be released. She confirmed her freedom on Instagram at approximately 3:45 p.m. that day.
Mamdani also gave White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles a handwritten list of four additional Columbia University students currently held in federal immigration custody, requesting the administration’s consideration of their cases. The White House did not confirm or deny receipt of that request.
A Pattern That Alarms Civil Liberties Advocates
The circumstances of Aghayeva’s detention drew immediate condemnation from civil liberties organizations and immigration attorneys. The use of deceptive practices to gain access to a private residential building — whether on a university campus or elsewhere — raises serious constitutional questions about Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. Legal experts have noted that agents who misrepresent their identity to gain consent for entry may be operating outside the law, though the courts have not definitively resolved all aspects of this question in the immigration enforcement context.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New York has been tracking a pattern of immigration enforcement on and near college campuses since the start of the second Trump administration. Advocates argue that the chilling effect on international students, researchers, and faculty is significant and growing, even when individual detainees are eventually released. Columbia’s campus in Morningside Heights has been a flashpoint for federal-local tensions since 2024, and the Aghayeva case adds a new and troubling dimension: the use of a child’s safety as a social engineering tool to gain building access.
The Limits of Mayoral Power
Mamdani’s success in securing Aghayeva’s release through a direct presidential phone call was widely noted. But advocates were quick to point out that this model of intervention — a mayor personally lobbying a president for each individual case — is neither scalable nor sustainable. There are thousands of immigrants in federal detention, many of them from New York City. Not every family has a sympathetic mayor with an Oval Office meeting already scheduled.
The episode also raised questions about transparency. Mamdani’s trip to Washington was not publicly disclosed in advance. Reporters learned of the meeting through a Times report that morning. Had the Aghayeva detention not intersected with the visit, the public might not have known about the housing discussion at all until after the fact. Mamdani’s press secretary argued that the meeting’s private nature allowed for a more candid conversation with the president. Others suggested that public accountability is better served by transparency about when and why the mayor is seeking federal favors.
Aghayeva’s release does not resolve the underlying tensions. Federal immigration enforcement remains active across New York City’s five boroughs and its universities. The rules of engagement — about who can enter what building, under what pretenses, with what authority — are being rewritten in real time. New Yorkers watching this moment should understand that what happened at Columbia on February 26 was not an isolated incident. It was a window into the daily reality facing immigrant communities across the city.
For information on immigrant rights in enforcement encounters, see the ACLU immigrant rights guide. For Columbia University’s statement on the incident, visit Columbia University. For data on immigration detention trends, see the National Immigration Forum. For legal analysis of Fourth Amendment rights and immigration enforcement, see the Cornell Law Fourth Amendment overview.
