The Columbia University junior who filed suit against the Trump administration to stop her deportation engaged in “concerning conduct,” including being arrested at an anti-Israel protest earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
Yunseo Chung, 21, a women’s studies major who emigrated to the US with her family from South Korea as a child, was charged with obstructing governmental administration and issued a desk appearance ticket by the NYPD after her March 5 arrest at the Barnard College sit-in.
“Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The protest at Barnard was sparked by the expulsion of two students who barged into a Columbia class on modern Israel in January and tossed around antisemitic fliers.
Chung, a permanent US resident, was not in federal custody as of Monday, and is still facing deportation despite her lawsuit to stop the proceedings.
“She is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws,” McLaughlin said. “Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge.”
Chung’s legal team argued that the actions by the Trump administration were an attempt to “chill” her free speech rights.
“The government’s retaliation against Ms. Chung comes in a broader context of retaliation against other noncitizens who have exercised their First Amendment rights,” her legal team said in a statement.
Chung was a former high school valedictorian and social media editor for Quarto, the university’s official undergraduate literary magazine.
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