A Korean Columbia University student, who is a legal permanent US resident and has participated in pro-Palestine protests, cannot be detained by federal immigration officials for now as she fights the administration of President Donald Trump over attempts to deport her, a judge ruled.
Yunseo Chung, 21, has lived in the US since she was seven and sued the Trump administration on Monday to prevent her deportation. Her legal team was informed this month that her lawful permanent resident status was being revoked, according to court records in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The US Department of Homeland Security alleged Chung engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was previously arrested by police during a protest at Barnard College that DHS termed "pro-Hamas."
US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against the government that prevents Chung from being detained, court records showed.
Actions against Chung form part of a pattern of government efforts against pro-Palestine voices critical of Israel's carnage in Gaza, her lawsuit said.
Chung sued the Trump administration on Monday and argued that authorities are using tactics they used on Mahmoud Khalil against her.
Mahmoud Khalil says his arrest is a testament to the power of students in shifting the public opinion towards the liberation of Palestine.
Crackdown on pro-Palestine students
Chung's case is the latest example of the Trump administration's efforts to detain and deport pro-Palestine protesters, accusing them of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas.
On March 8, authorities arrested Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist and a student at Columbia University. Trump hailed his arrest and said it was the "first of many."
Trump, without evidence, accused Khalil of supporting Hamas. Khalil denies links to the resistance group.
A few days after Khalil's arrest, Trump's claim came due after another pro-Palestine student, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, was arrested. His attorney said he was arrested because of the Palestinian identity of his wife.
After the arrest of Suri, authorities went after another pro-Palestine student, Momodou Taal, asking him to turn himself in.
The changes include an overhaul to the campus protest policies and a review of the college's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department, the Center for Palestine Studies and the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.
Professors sue Trump admin
In other developments, groups representing Columbia University professors on Tuesday sued the Trump administration over its effort to force the university to tighten rules on campus protests and put a Middle Eastern studies department under outside oversight, among other measures, by cancelling $400 million in federal funding and threatening to withhold billions more in the future.
"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.
"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 authorised 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.
Columbia University recently yielded to Trump's pressure and adopted new policy changes over pro-Palestine protests last Spring
