A US judge blocked the Trump government’s order to detain and deport a Columbia University student, as President Donald Trump escalated his crackdown on foreign students linked to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
At an emergency hearing held on Tuesday, Manhattan judge Naomi Buchwald issued a temporary restraining order halting the government’s efforts to locate and deport a 21 year old student Yunseo Chung.
“Defendants-respondents are enjoined from detaining the plaintiff-petitioner pending further order of this Court,” Buchwald ruled, quoted by AFP.
“I don’t think there is any evidence in the record that she would be a danger to the community,” Buchwald said in court before issuing the ruling.
“The notion of putting this 21-year-old, who nothing in the record suggests is a danger … into ICE detention … is not a particularly appealing result,” the she said, quoted by the New York Post.
Chung, a South Korean citizen and US permanent resident, was targeted by immigration authorities under the same measures that were used to detain Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is now facing deportation.
The government argued that both students undermined US foreign policy, a charge that allows the secretary of state to expel non-citizens.
Chung, who has reportedly been in hiding, filed a lawsuit against the government on Monday, arguing that immigration laws were being misused to suppress political speech.
“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.” her legal team said.
“As of today, Yunseo Chung no longer has to fear and live in fear of ICE coming to her doorstep and abducting her in the night,” Chung attorney Ramzi Kassem said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to her lawyers, Columbia’s public safety department informed Chung that homeland security agents were seeking her arrest. Federal agents also searched two Columbia-owned residences on 13 March in connection with her case, they said.
Legal challenges against Trump’s crackdown
The Trump administration has made Columbia University a central focus of its crackdown, cutting $400 million in federal funding on the grounds that the school failed to protect Jewish students from alleged harassment. Trump has framed pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations as antisemitic, while activists argue they are acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
On Tuesday, a group of university professors sued the Trump administration, calling its policies against foreign students and academics unlawful. The lawsuit, filed by the American association of university professors and the American federation of teachers, also seeks to reverse the funding cuts to Columbia.
“The policy prevents or impedes Plaintiffs’ US citizen members from hearing from, and associating with, their non-citizen students and colleagues,” the lawsuit read.
The Ivy league university responded by introducing measures to address antisemitism and regulate protests, but the administration has stopped short of fully meeting Trump’s demands.
Khalil, who played a prominent role in leading student negotiations with university authorities, remains detained in Louisiana while his lawyers fight his deportation. Chung, in contrast, was not a high-profile protest organiser. Her lawyers acknowledge she was arrested and released for “obstruction of governmental administration,” with the case still pending in the New York courts.
Todd Wolfson, of the American association of university professors, warned that the administration’s actions could have broader implications.
“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,” he said.
