In a social media video, a young woman is shown studying while wearing a white blouse, with a tan sweater folded around her shoulders. Other posts showcase her morning routines and study habits while clad in fashionable athletic attire or stylish outfits in the library.
Elmina Aghayeva, a 29-year-old senior at Columbia University, has 114,000 followers on Instagram and possesses an aesthetic that portrays, as she puts it, a lifestyle of “beauty” and “brains,” no mention of politics.
“She’s an influencer,” said Delfina Roybal, a classmate of Ms. Aghayeva’s. “If you have been to Columbia, you know who she is.”
On Thursday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered Ms. Aghayeva’s university-owned apartment and detained her. By that afternoon, she had been released, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani sought President Trump’s intervention during a visit to the White House.
Ms. Aghayeva, who is from Azerbaijan, cuts a strikingly different figure from other immigrants who have been connected to demonstrations at Columbia and detained by federal immigration officials.
At the height of political tensions on college campuses in 2023 and 2024, Mahmoud Khalil became the face of pro-Palestinian student activism at Columbia. He was detained by immigration agents in the lobby of his student apartment in March 2025. Not long after, immigration agents took into custody Leqaa Kordia, who had been involved in demonstrations at Columbia.
A month after that, Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student, was detained when he showed up for a citizenship interview in Vermont. Last week, an immigration judge blocked Mr. Mahdawi’s deportation. Mr. Mahdawi this month said he had been detained not for breaking the law, but “for speaking against the genocide of Palestinians.”
By all appearances, Ms. Aghayeva, known as Ellie to her friends, is not a political activist. She is majoring in political science and neuroscience and has built a reputation as somewhat of a socialite on campus. She did not respond to requests for an interview. She posted on Instagram that she had been flooded with inquiries from reporters.
Ms. Aghayeva appears to have been in the United States since at least 2016. Before enrolling in Columbia and moving to New York, she lived in Connecticut and North Carolina. According to public records, her husband, Garrett Blackburn, is an American citizen who lives in North Carolina. The couple separated a few years ago, and they are rarely in contact, Mr. Blackburn said on Thursday.
Shortly after 6 a.m. on Thursday, Ms. Aghayeva was in her apartment in a university-owned building on West 121st Street when ICE agents arrived.
Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia, said in a statement that the agents had misrepresented themselves, telling a building superintendent that they were the police and that they were searching for a missing child.
The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, said that it had arrested Ms. Aghayeva because her student visa had been terminated in 2016 for failing to attend classes. The department disputed Columbia’s assertion that agents had misrepresented themselves.
Ms. Aghayeva’s legion of followers learned of her detention in an unsurprising way: on her Instagram story. She posted a photo showing her in the back of a vehicle. The caption read: “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.”
Ms. Aghayeva’s Instagram account had 57 posts on Friday, including reels and pictures. Most of the reels provided a window into her world as a full-time student and content creator who was studying for the LSAT, the Law School Admission Test. Her content is largely a how-to guide for people navigating the strain that comes with being a college student.
Some videos offer strategies to help students remember what they have studied and lessons on how to rid themselves of distractions and self-doubt. Her followers can expect to see a few posts from her each month studying in a massive library at Columbia.
On Thursday afternoon, after being released by ICE, Ms. Aghayeva was back on Instagram.
“I just got out a little while ago. I am safe and okay. In an uber otw back home,” she wrote. “I am so sorry but I am in complete shock over what happened … I need a little bit of time to process everything. I will come back soon. But please don’t worry.”
“I love you all.”
Samantha Latson is a Times reporter covering New York City and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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