Student suing Trump administration over deportation order should not be detained, court rules
A student who is suing the government for attempting to deport her for participating in pro-Palestine protests has been granted reprieve on Tuesday from being detained or transferred outside of New York by federal agents.
The legal team of Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student and US permanent legal resident who has lived in the United States since she was seven, filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Monday to seek immediate relief to block her from being detained or transferred outside the district to a distant detention site.
An emergency hearing took place in the Southern District of New York City on Tuesday afternoon. The court heard arguments from her legal team and granted the TRO, which remains in place until further orders by the court.
The lawsuit and request for an emergency TRO came after immigration officials moved to deport Chung for her participation in pro-Palestinian protests.
In court documents, her legal team said she “was one of a large group of college students raising, expressing, and discussing shared concerns” and has not “assumed a high-profile role in these protests”.
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Chung was arrested by the New York Police Department during her participation in a sit-in on 5 March at Columbia's Barnard College, asking for the reinstatement of three peers who were expelled for their participation in pro-Palestinian protests. She was given a ticket for her participation at the time and released.
The former high school valedictorian was subsequently targeted by the Trump administration for deportation following an executive order equating pro-Palestinian views with antisemitism and vowing to punish student activists.
Court documents submitted by her legal team say that the deportation proceedings form “part of a larger pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech”.
Chung's legal team breathed a sigh of relief as the court sought to protect Chung.
"Yunseo no longer has to fear that ICE will spirit her away to a distant prison simply because she spoke up for Palestinian human rights. The court's TRO is both sensible and fair to preserve the status quo as we litigate the serious constitutional issues at stake, not just for Yunseo, but for our society as a whole," Ramzi Kassem, co-director of CLEAR, a non-profit and clinic at CUNY School of Law, told Middle East Eye.
Jordan Wells, Senior Attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area told MEE that cabinet members shouldn't be targeting people based on their expression of free speech.
“May the day never come when the Secretary of State is permitted to target a college student for banishment from the United States because of political protest. At the very least, we are relieved on behalf of our client that day is not today”.
ICE targets Chung
On 8 March, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official signed an arrest warrant for Chung, and the next day, ICE agents showed up at her family home looking for her.
Then on 10 March, a federal law official told her legal team that her lawful permanent status was being “revoked”. A few days later, on 13 March, federal law enforcement agents executed a search of Chung’s dormitory looking for occupancy or lease agreements, travel and immigration records.
Speaking about the incident on Facebook, professor and author Moustafa Bayoumi said, “They're attempting to deport this 21-year-old student who, even according to the government, has committed no crime.
“By targeting her, the administration must believe they're looking tough (though it's only in the way that punching down could ever be considered 'tough'). Moreover, they appear to be trying to intimidate others into censoring their own speech. The Trump administration wants to scare people into silence.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said, “Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College. She is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws. Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge."
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman from Columbia University said they could not comment on the case.
“Due to our FERPA obligations, we are not going to comment on individual students,” the spokesperson said.
Lawsuits involving Columbia University
Groups representing professors at Columbia University have sued the Trump administration over funding cuts and a list of efforts from the government to control the private university.
“This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students,” the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers said in their lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court.
Some of the demands from the administration include tightening rules on campus protests and putting the Middle Eastern studies department under outside oversight. The Trump administration already cancelled $400m in federal funding and has threatened to take away billions more.
“The Trump administration is coercing Columbia University to do its bidding and regulate speech and expression on campus by holding hostage billions of dollars in congressionally authorized federal funding - funding that is responsible for positioning the American university system as a global leader in scientific, medical, and technological research and is crucial to ensuring it remains so,” they said.
In yet another lawsuit involving Columbia University, organisers and supporters of pro-Palestinian demonstrations were the targets of a lawsuit in a Manhattan Federal Court on Monday.
The suit was filed by nine US and Israeli citizens who were victims of the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. They include relatives of people murdered or taken hostage, while two are affiliated with Columbia.
The lawsuit accuses defendants of functioning as a “propaganda arm” and “public relations firm” for Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation in the US.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who acted as a negotiator between the university and protesters, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Other defendants include Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace, and an array of their leaders.
“It would be illegal for Hamas to directly retain a public relations firm in the United States or hire enforcers to impose their will on American cities,” the complaint said. “Yet those are precisely the services that the [defendant groups] knowingly provide to Hamas,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of violating US antiterrorism law and the law of nations and seeks compensatory, punitive, and treble damages.
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