A judge ordered US authorities Tuesday to cease efforts to detain and deport a New York college student, as President Donald Trump presses his campaign against pupils linked to pro-Palestinian protests.
Trump has targeted New York’s Columbia University, where the student is enrolled, as an epicenter of the US student protest movement sparked by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, stripping federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators.
Critics argue that the Trump administration’s campaign is retribution and will have a chilling effect on free speech, while its supporters insist it is necessary to restore order to campuses and protect Jewish students.
Authorities had sought to detain Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old South Korean citizen and permanent resident of the United States, under the same powers they used to arrest and hold Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil pending deportation.
In both cases, authorities argue the students undermined US foreign policy through their actions, a charge which allows the Secretary of State to deport foreigners.
Chung, whom officers reportedly have been unable to find, sued the US government Monday, arguing that “immigration enforcement — here, immigration detention and threatened deportation — may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express political views disfavored by the current administration.”
According to Chung’s lawyers, Columbia’s Public Safety department contacted Chung to tell her that Homeland Security agents were seeking her arrest.
At an emergency hearing Tuesday, judge Naomi Buchwald ordered the government to stop its effort to locate and remove Chung, a court order said.
“Defendants-Respondents are enjoined from detaining the Plaintiff-Petitioner pending further order of this Court,” Buchwald said in a temporary restraining order.
Separately, a number of university professors sued the Trump administration Tuesday, arguing its policy targeting foreign academics was illegal.
“The policy prevents or impedes Plaintiffs’ US citizen members from hearing from, and associating with, their non-citizen students and colleagues,” the lawsuit reads.
In addition, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers asked a New York judge to declare Trump’s slashing of $400 million from Columbia’s budget unconstitutional and to restore the funding.
Columbia’s student movement has been at the forefront of protests that have exposed deep rifts over the war in Gaza, drawing dividing lines on the issues of protest and free speech across the country.
Khalil, the arrested Columbia graduate student, was a prominent leader in the protest movement, leading negotiations between students and university authorities.
Lawyers are seeking to have him released from detention in Louisiana while they fight his deportation.
Chung, meanwhile, did not have such a high profile in the protest movement.
Her lawyers acknowledge that she was detained and released for “obstruction of governmental administration” and the case is pending in the New York courts system.
On March 13, federal agents searched two Columbia-owned residences apparently in connection with Chung’s case, according to her attorneys.
Activists call the protests that rocked numerous US campuses a show of support for the Palestinian people, while Trump condemns them as anti-Semitic and says they must end.
The president has cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia — including research grants and other contracts — on the grounds that the institution has not adequately protected Jewish students from harassment.
Columbia announced Friday a package of concessions to the Trump administration around defining anti-Semitism, policing protests and oversight for specific academic departments.
They stopped short however of some of the more strenuous demands of the Trump administration, which nonetheless welcomed the Ivy League college’s proposals.
Todd Wolfson, of the American Association of University professors that joined the academics’ lawsuit, said “the Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won’t stop there.”
