Image Credit: CLEAR

New York, March 26 (RHC)-- A 21-year-old Columbia University student in New York City has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, which is seeking to deport her for participating in Palestinian rights protests on campus. 

Yunseo Chung is a legal permanent resident from South Korea who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old.  Federal immigration agents searched Chung’s university housing earlier this month as they attempted to arrest her. 

The Trump administration is targeting Chung under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the secretary of state authority to begin deportation proceedings against any noncitizen deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests — even permanent legal residents like Chung and Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by federal agents from his Columbia housing earlier this month.

Earlier this week, on Monday, dozens of faculty members gathered to condemn Trump’s and Columbia’s attacks on free speech. 

Political science professor Timothy Frye had this to say: “Why do autocrats fear higher education?  Why are they so hostile to the free expression of ideas?  Well, universities are threatening to autocrats because we teach independent and critical thinking, because we train our students to scrutinize evidence and demand rigor, and because we teach students to be skeptical of authority, especially our own authority.  If anyone thinks that we can brainwash Columbia students, they’ve never met a Columbia student.”

[ SOURCE: DEMOCRACY NOW ]