Student Protester Sues Trump Administration As ICE Tries to Deport Her for Political Speech

21-year-old Yunseo Chung has lived in the U.S. since she was seven but is being hunted by ICE for participating in anti-genocide protests at Columbia.

By Kylie Cheung  |  March 25, 2025 | 2:51pm
Politics
Student Protester Sues Trump Administration As ICE Tries to Deport Her for Political Speech
Demonstrators rally in support of Palestine and to protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, outside of Columbia University on March 24, 2025, in NYC. Photo: Getty Images

The Trump administration is reportedly escalating its war on legal residents over their political speech. On Monday, a 21-year-old Columbia student named Yunseo Chung sued the administration, alleging that ICE has been “hunting” her over her support of Palestine. 

Chung’s lawsuit notes that she visited pro-Palestine encampments on Columbia’s campus and distributed flyers stating that Columbia’s board is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza in the spring. On March 5, she participated in a student sit-in at the university to protest “excessive punishments meted out by the Columbia administration” against pro-Palestine students. For this, the junior was arrested by the New York Police Department and received a desk appearance ticket for “obstruction of government administration.” The university then placed Chung on “interim suspension due to the arrest and restricted her campus access,” per her lawsuit. 

Notably, Chung wasn’t a leader of any of the pro-Palestine protests or actions on campus, nor did she make “public statements to the press or otherwise assumed a high-profile role.” She’s also a legal resident and has lived in the U.S. since she was seven. Her lawsuit states that she’s been on the Dean’s List every semester since enrolling at Columbia and holds a 3.99 GPA. None of this defines whether anyone is more or less worthy of deportation. But ICE’s dogged pursuit of Chung shows that, as the Trump administration zeroes in on targeting and punishing students for protesting Israel’s genocide, no one is off limits.

Now, ICE is trying to revoke Chung’s permanent resident status and deport her. Per Chung’s lawsuit, an ICE official signed an administrative arrest warrant on March 8, then ICE agents visited her parents’ residence looking for her on March 10 and visited her dormitory on March 13. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN that Chung “is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws.” Their statement continues, “Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College. Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge.”

Chung’s lawsuit, which names President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons, and New York ICE Acting Field Office Director William P. Joyce, as defendants, aims to stop not just her deportation, but the “pattern and practice of targeting individuals associated with protests for Palestinian rights for immigration enforcement.” Students, specifically non-citizens, are being illegally targeted for political speech, the lawsuit says.

Columbia hasn’t yet commented on Chung’s lawsuit.

Earlier this month, ICE agents arrested and detained recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil from student housing, separating him from his eight-month pregnant wife; Khalil is Palestinian and holds a green card, which the Trump administration is trying to revoke. The agents declined to show Khalil a physical warrant, nor did they tell Khalil or his wife where they were taking him. A judge temporarily blocked his removal from the country, but his case remains ongoing. 

In January, the Trump administration threatened to revoke the student visas of anyone it determines to be aligned with Hamas. The administration also threatened to withhold federal funding from universities that don’t sufficiently crush pro-Palestine student protesters. Hours before Khalil’s arrest, the administration cut $400 million in grants to Columbia, accusing the university of failing to combat antisemitism. The administration’s definition of antisemitism, of course, entails anyone who protests genocide. 

In response to the threat of loss of funding, Columbia acquiesced to all of the administration’s demands that the school further crack down on its own students, including broadening campus police officers’ authority to arrest students. In Khalil’s case, he emailed university administrators about his fears of being targeted by ICE, asking for help, and was ignored, only to be arrested by ICE agents days later. Columbia has aggressively responded to students protesting Israel’s genocide, both last spring and again earlier this month,  by siccing heavily militarized police officers on them.

Just last week, ICE agents at Georgetown University arrested Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who participated in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia and allegedly overstayed her student visa. At roughly the same time, ICE arrested Georgetown researcher Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in Arlington, Virginia; Suri says he is being targeted because his wife is Palestinian. ICE agents are also reportedly seeking the arrest of pro-Palestine Cornell University doctoral student Momodou Taal and Ranjani Srinivasan, another pro-Palestine Columbia University student and Fulbright recipient who left the U.S. for Canada earlier this month when she learned her student visa had been revoked.

 
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