Trump can’t deport Columbia undergraduate pro-Palestinian activist, Jewish judge rules
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said the Trump administration had not shown that Yunseo Chung poses a foreign policy risk.
Columbia’s gates were closed to ID holders the week of University President Minouche Shafik’s testimony in Congress. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
(JTA) — The Trump administration must stop trying to deport Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled on Tuesday.
Chung, 21, is an undergraduate who is a legal permanent resident of the United States. She sued the administration after federal officers visited her dorm room in an attempt to arrest her ahead of deportation. Buchwald said the administration had not demonstrated that Chung poses a foreign policy risk.
The ruling is the latest development in the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to deport pro-Palestinian student activists, which it says is part of its fight against antisemitism.
It is not the first case with Jewish significance that Buchwald, who is Jewish, has ruled on. In 2012, she ruled on a case involving metzitza b’peh, a controversial Jewish circumcision ritual. Earlier that year, she presided over a mock trial of King David for rape and murder, held at a suburban New York City synagogue. In 2013, she sentenced Heshy Tischler, an Orthodox radio host and perennial political candidate in Brooklyn, to prison for fraud.
She has also ruled in the past against President Donald Trump, determining in 2018 that it violated the First Amendment for him to block users on Twitter.
Buchwald is not the first Jewish federal judge to rule on the deportation efforts: Earlier this month, Judge Jesse Furman blocked the deportation of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, who was arrested inside his Columbia-owned apartment building, remains in detention.
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