A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from arresting Columbia University student Yunseo Chung after a scathing hearing attacking the government’s conduct in the case, Adam Klasfeld reported for All Rise News on Thursday.
“For nearly three months, the Department of Homeland Security has unsuccessfully tried to find and arrest Chung for deportation proceedings,” the report noted, despite her having no criminal accusations apart from a now-dismissed misdemeanor charge related to her involvement in protests. “A federal judge last week proposed a solution to break the impasse. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can simply serve her attorneys with a notice to appear, initiating Chung’s deportation proceedings — while preventing what the judge called an unnecessary and traumatizing arrest.”
However, in the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Waterman refused this proposal, saying, “ICE has broad discretion over actions and decisions to conduct arrests and initiate removal proceedings, including the manner in which it serves.”
Chung’s attorney, Ramzi Kassem, slammed this position, saying that “The government is simply refusing to take yes for an answer,” and that the only reason they could have for insisting on a physical arrest is so they can transfer her to a distant detention facility in Texas or Louisiana where she would be cut off from her support groups.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald appeared to agree with Kassem, saying, “This is a new world. I’m a little taken aback,” and blasting the prosecutor’s position as “disturbing” and “disappointing.” She concluded the hearing by issuing an injunction barring the administration from arresting Chung.
Trump officials have ramped up mass deportation efforts, and a key part of that has been a harsh crackdown on international students who participated in campus protests against Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
Other student activists who have been targeted include Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was shipped across the country to Louisiana away from his pregnant wife who has since given birth; and Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, whom a judge found had her First Amendment rights violated when federal law enforcement arrested her.