Yunsong Zhao, 19, claims he was falsely arrested and dismissed from the school, causing him to lose his student visa, the suit obtained by The Roanoke Timessays.
The visa had allowed him to study in Blacksburg, Va. after moving from China.
Zhao also accuses campus police of harassing him because he's Asian and favored guns.
"This case is about over-eager police trampling over a foreign student's rights because he resembles a student who committed a mass shooting Virginia Tech's campus in 2007," Zhao's lawyer wrote in the complaint filed Thursday.
Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korea native, killed 32 people on campus before fatally shooting himself in the head on April 16, 2007.
The suit names Blacksburg Police Officer Brian Wilson, who was asked by the school to follow Zhao at a shooting range where he fired an AR-15 rifle.
"He (Wilson) has no evidence, neither photos nor videos, to corroborate his account," the suit says.
Zhao was then arrested on a weapons charge on Jan. 29. Police began to investigate him after he purchased the AR-15 and a rifle magazine, according to WDBJ-TV.
He was also trying to buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition, researched bulletproof vests and bought a vehicle that was previously used as a police car, court records show.
Zhao demanded in the suit that a court should allow him to go to school so he could get his student visa back and drop his weapons charge.