ICE blocked from deporting Columbia student protester

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge in New York granted a motion Tuesday to restrict the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security from detaining a lawful permanent resident who says she is being targeted for arrest and deportation because she supports Palestinian rights and criticized Columbia University’s punitive policies on campus protests.

Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia student who moved from South Korea at age 7, filed a habeas corpus petition in the Southern District of New York on Monday to prevent her imminent arrest and targeted deportation because of her pro-Palestine speech and associations.

Chung said in her court filing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up at her parents’ home to deport her after she was arrested this month while protesting the Ivy League university’s disciplinary actions against other student protesters.

At an emergency hearing on Tuesday afternoon, Senior U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald quickly granted Chung’s motion for a temporary restraining order, barring any immigration arrest or detention to preserve the status quo while litigation proceeds on her immigration petition.

Buchwald said the notion of subjecting Chung to ICE detention —  without any showing of dangerousness, risk of flight, or record of communications with foreign terrorist groups — “is not a particularly appealing result.”

“I don’t think there is any evidence in the record that she would be a danger to the community,” she said in court prior to granting the motion for a temporary restraining order.

“I think the most sensible thing to do is to enter it,” the Clinton appointee said. “Because it’s rational to do so.”

Lawyers for the government lodged jurisdictional objections to litigating Chung’s case in Manhattan federal court, but Buchwald was not persuaded to reject the TRO motion based on the purported venue impediment.

Buchwald’s 21st-floor courtroom gallery was filled to capacity for the Tuesday afternoon hearing.

Chung’s attorney Ramzi Kassem, who also represents detained Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil, told reporters outside of the Manhattan federal court building there at least four Columbia students who have been targeted for immigration arrests and deportation by the Trump administration.

“What the government is attempting to do is outrageous and plainly so,” he said after the hearing. “This court rightly recognized that from the start and issued this reasonable, sensible temporary relief so that we can litigate the government’s legal claims, which we believe are questionable.”

“People should be able to speak freely in defense of Palestinian rights or on any other subject, and people are entitled to due process as well,” he added.

In her court filing, Chung’s lawyers said Secretary of State Marco Rubio is deploying the Immigration and Nationality Act as a “blank check to censor noncitizens and retaliate against speakers who espouse views contrary to President Trump’s administration.”

“In sum, no different from generations of American students before her, Ms. Chung is a college activist who has associated with her peers to express heartfelt political beliefs, in line with long and deeply held traditions and values,” she wrote in her motion. “Until two weeks ago, it would have been preposterous to suggest or even imagine that the secretary of state, invoking an obscure and rarely used law, would take the view that Ms. Chung’s very presence or activities, including her speech in support of Palestinian human rights or of students facing disciplinary proceedings, could or would jeopardize U.S. foreign policy writ large.”

Last week, a judge in Manhattan federal court ordered detained Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil to be transferred to New Jersey from the Louisiana immigration detention facility where he was held since March 10, two days after federal officials arrested him outside of his Manhattan apartment and told him that his green card status was being revoked.

Khalil was a graduate student at Columbia University until December 2024, when he finished his master’s degree in public administration. He was slated to graduate in May 2025. Last spring, Khalil was a lead negotiator on behalf of student protesters who tried to get Columbia University to divest funds from Israel due to its bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip by pitching a tent encampment on the university’s lawn.

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