An unexpected White House meeting between President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a dramatic turn Thursday, culminating in the mayor announcing that a Columbia University student detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be released “imminently.”
Mamdani shared the update on X shortly after speaking by phone with the president.
“Just got off the phone with President Trump,” he wrote. “In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He just informed me that she will be released imminently.”
The Department of Homeland Security, however, offered a sharply different account of the case. In a statement to Fox News Digital, DHS identified the student as Elmina Aghayeva, an Azerbaijani national whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes.
“ICE arrested Elmina Aghayeva, an illegal alien from Azerbaijan, whose student visa was terminated in 2016,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment. She has no pending appeals or applications with DHS.”
Columbia University confirmed that ICE agents entered a residential building around 6:30 a.m. local time and detained a student. The university raised concerns about how agents gained access.
“Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person,’” Columbia said in a statement. The university reiterated that law enforcement must present a judicial warrant or subpoena to access non-public campus areas and emphasized that administrative warrants are insufficient for entry into university housing.
The detention occurred just hours before Mamdani’s previously unscheduled visit to the White House. According to reports, the meeting was expected to focus on immigration and housing challenges facing New York City.
The mayor and president have maintained an unexpectedly cordial relationship despite sharp ideological differences. During a prior Oval Office appearance in November 2025, shortly after Mamdani’s mayoral victory, Trump praised him as a formidable campaigner and emphasized shared goals, including expanding housing and addressing affordability.
“We want this city of ours that we love to do very well,” Trump said at the time, adding that Mamdani might “surprise some conservative people, actually, and some very liberal people.”
Thursday’s development adds a new layer to that dynamic. If Aghayeva’s release proceeds as Mamdani indicated, it would mark a rare instance of direct presidential intervention in an individual immigration detention case.
