A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her.

The student, Yunseo Chung, is a legal permanent resident and junior who has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. The Trump administration is arguing that her presence in the United States hinders the administration’s foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of antisemitism.

Administration officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, cited the same rationale in explaining the arrest this month of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of the university and permanent resident who is being held in Louisiana. Unlike Mr. Khalil, Ms. Chung does not appear to have been a prominent figure in the demonstrations that shook the school last year.

Ms. Chung, a high school valedictorian who moved to the United States with her family from South Korea when she was 7, has not been arrested. She remains in the country, but her lawyers would not comment on her whereabouts, given the administration’s efforts to detain her.

Her lawsuit in Manhattan federal court shows the extensive, if so far unsuccessful, efforts by U.S. immigration officials to arrest her. Agents historically prefer to pick up immigrants in jail or prisons. Other types of arrests are more difficult, often requiring hours of research, surveillance and other investigative resources.

But federal agents believed that those efforts were merited in the case of Ms. Chung, according to her lawyers at CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York.