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ICE wants to deport 21 year-old green card holder because of her 'protesting'
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently attempted to arrest and deport a 21 year-old legal permanent resident who has been in the United States since she was a child. She's now suing President Donald Trump's administration over the attempted arrest.
The New York Times reported Monday that Yunseo Chung, whose family emigrated to the U.S. when she was seven years old, is suing Trump and other top administration officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, among others after federal agents raided her Columbia University dormitory on March 13. The lawsuit describes how ICE agents "executed search warrants" between 9 PM and 10 PM under the so-called "harboring" statute, looking for documents regarding her affiliation with Columbia, lease agreements and any immigration paperwork.
Attorneys for Chung, who was a valedictorian at her high school, argue that the warrant was obtained under false pretenses and that Chung was being singled out for her pro-Palestinian activism. They pointed to one revealing remark from an employee of Homeland Security Investigations (a sub-agency within ICE) in which Chung was told the State Department was seeking to revoke her green card "due to the situation with the protesting."
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Chung's attorneys also revealed in the lawsuit that Perry Carbone, who is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that the State Department was revoking Chung's visa. When Chung's lawyer told Carbone that she was a legal permanent resident with a green card, Carbone responded: "The secretary of state has revoked that, too." Carbone was apparently stonewalled when Chung's legal counsel informed him that Rubio didn't have the authority to unilaterally revoke a green card.
Monday's lawsuit against the Trump administration comes not long after Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil — who is married to a U.S. citizen — was arrested and put in deportation proceedings without being booked on any charges. Khalil, who was born in Syria, was a prominent figure in last year's pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Columbia's campus. Masked ICE agents also recently arrested Dr. Badar Suri Khan, who is a postgraduate student at Georgetown University and an Indian national legally in the U.S. on a student visa, and placed him in deportation proceedings.
Both Khalill and Khan are being detained under a statute that allows for the detention of noncitizens if the government believes their presence could constitute a threat to the administration's foreign policy. Chung argued in her lawsuit that her arrest, as well as the arrests of Khalil and Khan, were in retaliation for their pro-Palestinian activism.
"Officials at the highest levels of the federal government have made clear that they intend to use immigration enforcement to punish noncitizens who speak out in support of Palestinians and Palestinian rights, or who are perceived to have engaged in such speech," the lawsuit read. "Some opponents of these protest activities, including President Donald J. Trump, frequently mischaracterize peaceful protest and any speech in favor of Palestinian rights as inherently supportive of Hamas or terrorism and anti-Semitic."
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Click here to read the Times' report in full (subscription required), and click here to read Chung's lawsuit.
