Columbia Student Hunted by ICE Sues to Prevent Deportation

A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her.

The student, Yunseo Chung, is a legal permanent resident and junior who has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. The Trump administration is arguing that her presence in the United States hinders the administration’s foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of antisemitism.

Administration officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, cited the same rationale in explaining the arrest this month of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of the university and permanent resident who is being held in Louisiana. Unlike Mr. Khalil, Ms. Chung does not appear to have been a prominent figure in the demonstrations that shook the school last year.

Ms. Chung, a high school valedictorian who moved to the United States with her family from South Korea when she was 7, has not been arrested. She remains in the country, but her lawyers would not comment on her whereabouts, given the administration’s efforts to detain her.

Her lawsuit in Manhattan federal court shows the extensive, if so far unsuccessful, efforts by U.S. immigration officials to arrest her. Agents historically prefer to pick up immigrants in jail or prisons. Other types of arrests are more difficult, often requiring hours of research, surveillance and other investigative resources.

But federal agents believed that those efforts were merited in the case of Ms. Chung, according to her lawyers at CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials visited several residences on March 13, called for help from federal prosecutors and searched Ms. Chung’s university housing.

The involvement of federal prosecutors was particularly notable. According to Ms. Chung’s lawsuit, agents apparently seeking her searched two residences on the Columbia campus with warrants that cited a criminal law known as the harboring statute, aimed at those who give shelter to noncitizens present in the United States illegally.

That signaled that the searches were related to a broader criminal investigation by federal prosecutors into Columbia University. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has said that the school is under investigation “for harboring and concealing illegal aliens on its campus.”

Operating under the aegis of a federal investigation could signal a new tactic. ICE officers and agents often are unable to arrest their targets because they don’t answer the door, and an administrative warrant does not provide agents access to a home.

At the same time, the attempted arrest appears to be part of a new front in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — targeting immigrants who are in the country legally.

Ms. Chung, who majors in English and gender studies, has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations since last year. Her lawyers say that she did not speak to reporters, negotiate on behalf of student demonstrators, or in any other way take a leadership position.

She was, however, accused by the university of belonging to a group of students who posted fliers that pictured members of the board of trustees with the phrase “wanted for complicity in genocide.”

Press representatives for the secretary of state and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.