On March 8, 2025, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official signed an administrative arrest warrant for Yunseo Chung, an undergraduate student at Columbia University (CU) and lawful permanent resident of the United States (aka a green card holder), in apparent retaliation for her pro-Palestinian student activism. On March 10, federal law enforcement agents informed Chung’s lawyer that her residence card was being revoked.
Chung was born in South Korea, and moved to the United States with her parents when she was seven years old. She has lived in the country since then. At the time of her attempted arrest, Chung was majoring in English and gender studies at CU. She participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years. In the spring of 2024, CU accused Chung, together with other students, of posting flyers picturing members of the university’s board of trustees and stating that they “wanted for complicity in genocide.” The university ultimately determined that Chung had not violated any university policies. On March 5, 2025, police arrested Chung at a protest outside of Barnard College. She was charged with the misdemeanor of obstructing governmental administration and released. CU suspended her in response to the charge.
On March 9, ICE agents searched for Chung at her parents’ home. On March 10, ICE agents secured a warrant to search her CU housing, based on a federal statute that makes it a crime to knowingly conceal noncitizens who are in the US illegally—despite Chung’s status as a lawful permanent resident.
On March 10, a lawyer in the federal prosecutor’s office informed Chung’s attorney that Chung’s visa had been revoked under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that purportedly grants the US secretary of state the power to deport any individual whose presence in the US poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” (This is the same section used to justify the government’s detention of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, another green card holder (see report).) When Chung’s attorney informed him that Chung is a legal permanent resident, the lawyer responded that her residence card had been revoked.
United States immigration law provides, in relevant part, that in order to strip a person of lawful permanent resident status, the government must demonstrate before an immigration judge that the person has committed a deportable criminal offense. The law does not permit ICE to summarily revoke lawful permanent resident status without due process.
On March 25, Chung sued the US administration to halt her removal from the United States. On March 26, a federal judge ordered the government to cease its attempts to detain her.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the attempt to detain and revoke the residence card of a student activist in retaliation for the exercise of the rights of free expression and free association. Authorities have an obligation to refrain from sanctioning or otherwise retaliating against individuals based on their nonviolent expressive activity and must ensure that any legal or immigration procedures follow due process. The use of the justice or immigration systems to punish nonviolent student expression undermines academic freedom and democratic society generally.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/nyregion/columbia-university-protester-chung-deportation.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/nyregion/columbia-student-ice-suit-yunseo-chung.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/24/us/chung-lawsuit.html
https://theintercept.com/2025/03/28/ice-warrants-columbia-students-gaza-protests/
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03/25/judge-blocks-trump-administration-attempts-to-deport-yunseo-chung-cc-26/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/columbia-gaza-protester-yunseo-chung-lawsuit
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/25/judge-blocks-detention-columbia-student-00249892
https://apnews.com/article/university-protests-palestinian-immigration-2d7bd689b013b8bb6300fd6ab54de933
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/us/yunseo-chung-columbia-lawsuit-trump-ice/index.html
https://www.newsweek.com/yunseo-chung-speaks-out-judge-blocks-ice-colombia-student-2050735