Columbia student protester who’s lived in the U.S. since age 7 sues to stop deportation order
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NEW YORK — A Columbia University student who faces potential deportation for her involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest cannot be detained by immigration officials for now as she fights the Trump administration in court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan said the government had not laid out enough facts about its claims against Yunseo Chung.
The 21-year-old lawful permanent resident who came to the U.S. as a child filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday, arguing the government is “attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike.”
In a statement Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said she had “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested at a protest.
Chung’s suit said immigration officials moved to deport her after she was identified in news reports as one of several protesters arrested after a sit-in at a library on the nearby Barnard College campus this month.
Days later, officials told her lawyer that her permanent resident status was being revoked. Agents came looking for her at her parents’ home.
Chung has lived in the U.S. since emigrating from South Korea with her parents at age 7, according to her lawsuit.
The Columbia junior’s lawsuit cites the administration’s efforts to deport other students who participated in protests against Israel’s military actions in Gaza. They include fellow Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil and Momodou Taal of Cornell University, who received a notice last week to surrender to immigration authorities after he sued on March 15 to preempt deportation efforts.
Columbia University has agreed to implement a host of policy changes, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department.
On March 10, Chung said, a federal law enforcement official told her lawyer that her status was being revoked. Three days later, Chung said, law enforcement agents executed search warrants at two Columbia-owned residences, including her dormitory, seeking travel and immigration records, and other documents.
Chung is asking the court to block the Trump administration’s efforts to deport noncitizens who participated in campus protests against Israel’s military actions in Gaza. She asked the court to prevent the administration from detaining her, moving her out of New York City or removing her from the country while her lawsuit plays out.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “shocking actions against Ms. Chung form part of a larger pattern of attempted U.S. government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech,” said Chung’s lawsuit.
Mahmoud Khalil was at his apartment in Manhattan when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the building and took him into custody.
Officials at the highest echelons of government, the lawsuit says, “are attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike, including Ms. Chung’s speech.”
“Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College,” a senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said. “She is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws. Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge.”
Immigration enforcement agents on Saturday arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and Palestinian activist who has not been charged with any crime.
Taal, 31, a doctoral student in Africana studies, is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia.
In a court filing, the Justice Department said Taal’s student visa was revoked before he filed his lawsuit for his alleged involvement in “disruptive protests” that disregarded university policies and created a hostile environment for Jewish students.
But, the Justice Department said, ICE agents had trouble finding him.
Taal’s lawyer, Eric Lee, said Monday that his client was not being required to surrender before a hearing in the lawsuit Tuesday in Syracuse, N.Y.
Cornell suspended Taal for a second time last fall after a group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a campus career fair. He has limited access to the upstate New York campus as he continues his studies remotely.
Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American citizen, hasn’t been charged with breaking any laws, but faces deportation.
In his lawsuit, Taal and co-plaintiffs argue President Trump’s executive orders spurring the crackdown violate the free speech rights of international students and scholars. Taal says he was at the career fair protest for five minutes and had faced no criminal charges.
“If the 1st Amendment does not protect the right to attend a demonstration, what’s left?” Lee said. “Not much.”
Other students and faculty members have had visas revoked or were blocked from entering the U.S. because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians. The administration has been citing a seldom-invoked legal statute that authorizes the secretary of State to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests.
In one of the most high-profile cases, immigration officials detained Khalil, a Columbia graduate student, and told him his green card was being revoked because he participated in protests.
Khalil, who received a master’s degree last semester, served as a negotiator for students as they bargained with Columbia officials over an end to their campus tent encampment last spring. The Trump administration has argued his prominent role in the protests amounted to antisemitic support for Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Immigration officials have arrested a second person who participated in Pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and have revoked the visa of another student.
In newly filed papers, government lawyers said Khalil also failed to disclose his past work with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, his continued employment with the British Embassy for Syria, based in Beirut, nor his involvement with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition group of anti-Israel student organizations.
A lawyer for Khalil called the allegations “plainly thin” and said the government would have to prove any omission was willful and materially important.
The government has also detained a scholar at Georgetown University and refused to let a professor at Brown University’s medical school enter the U.S.
Hill, Offenhartz and Sisak write for the Associated Press. Hill reported from Albany, N.Y. AP writer Cedar Attanasio contributed to this report.
