Greg Sargent of the New Republic shared a photo of Yunseo Chung on X and wrote: “This is the latest person decreed by Marco Rubio to be a foreign policy threat and thus is now subject to deportation.”
Sargent reported that Chung, a Columbia student who attended pro-Palestine protests on the Barnard campus last year, left South Korea with her family and moved to the United States when she was 7 and was valedictorian of her high school.
This is the latest person decreed by Marco Rubio to be a foreign policy threat and thus is now subject to deportation: https://t.co/WLqObaT48W pic.twitter.com/GCsdK3dvSE
— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) March 25, 2025
Former Republican presidential candidate and former Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) amplified Sargent’s post on X and defended Chung.
Walsh wrote: “She’s 21yrs old. She’s been here since she was 7yrs old. She’s a legal permanent resident. And Trump/Rubio are trying to deport her bcuz she participated in protests against Israel. Bcuz of her views. This is so [expletive] wrong. This is not who we are. This is not America.”
Sargent added a screenshot of a document (below) which reads: “Pursuant to the Rubio Determination, ICE, a component of DHS, seeks to arrest Ms. Chung, detain her, and place her in removal proceedings, presumably to South Korea.”
Important: They’re now trying to deport *another* student, 21-year-old Yunseo Chung, a legal permanent resident, under the statute that authorizes the Sec of State to remove people deemed a threat. She’s lived here since childhood.
Again, Rubio is at the center of many of… https://t.co/mKecc9Ds5Y pic.twitter.com/j67PWjI8rG
— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) March 25, 2025
Immigration lawyer and Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council Aaron Reichlin-Melnick also shared his opinion of the arrest warrant: “I want to emphasize how outrageous this warrant is. Ms. Chung is here in the United States legally. But ICE HSI got a warrant against Columbia alleging that they were ‘harboring’ Ms. Chung under a law which applies ONLY to harboring people here illegally. She was in her dorm.”
I want to emphasize how outrageous this warrant is. Ms. Chung is here in the United States legally. But ICE HSI got a warrant against Columbia alleging that they were “harboring” Ms. Chung under a law which applies ONLY to harboring people here illegally.
She was in her dorm. https://t.co/pr58hVpu8C
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 25, 2025
Jason Paladino of Drop Site News reported: “Chung’s lawyers stress that she was not a movement leader, like Mahmoud Khalil, but only attended a few protests. She faced a disciplinary process from Columbia which found she was NOT in violation of any policies.”
The New York Times reported Monday that Chung is suing President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials including Rubio after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her. Representatives for Rubio and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.