Protesters demand that UO protect international students

Presenter: An immigration judge ruled April 11 that the Trump administration can deport Columbia University graduate / activist Mahmoud Khalil. The same day as the ruling, the UO Young Democratic Socialists of America organized a rally at Johnson Hall, demanding that the University protect academic freedom. Here are excerpts from their speeches.

Speaker: This is a coordinated attack from the Trump administration against our students, against our free speech and against our system of higher education.

[00:00:30] There can be no doubt that this is just the beginning. Trump won’t stop now. There will be more visa revocations. There will be more attacks. That’s why we have to build power in the community to be able to defend ourselves when the tide of authoritarianism reaches us. 

[00:00:46] The only way we can defend ourselves is through numbers and if ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) comes to our campus, all we can pray for is for the students to rise up and stop them.

[00:00:55] That’s why we’re starting an emergency ICE Watch outreach list.

[00:00:59] That’s why we have to demand protections and assurances from the University. We deserve a university that will take a stance against the Trump administration and fight back on behalf of its students.

[00:01:11] We’ll be taking the offer that administration proposes back to you, the student body, to deliberate on and decide what the path forward is going to be.

[00:01:20] On Thursday of week four, we’re calling for a general assembly of all the students to come discuss admin’s response to these demands and deliberate a path forward for the student movement, a path forward which protects our peers, free speech, and higher education, but also a path forward which understands this fight to be the foundation of something even greater: a national movement, which doesn’t just protect but demands change.

[00:01:46] Speaker: I want to just to name a couple of the things that we’re working on as the Rapid Action Working Group.

[00:01:52] We’re developing a safety guide for noncitizens and also developing ‘Know Your Rights’ events that actually acknowledge the act of destruction of legal protections by the Trump administration, destruction that has been facilitated by our university’s administration. 

[00:02:09] The University does not want to protect us, and it does not care about us. It sets the precedent for our students to be targeted by fascists. It refuses to protect our students and our community as they are actively targeted by ICE and baseless processes to revoke their visas, and it is actively refusing to enforce the GTFF (Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation) contract protections against ICE that we laid out in years past in expectation of a crisis like this. (Shame!)

[00:02:43] We already know what needs to be done. They just have to enforce these policies.

[00:02:53] But I cannot emphasize this enough. As a worker, I know this well. The University will not hand these demands to us. It is not enough to be educated, it is not enough to be educating, it is not enough to hold a sign, it is not enough to attend a rally. You have to organize. It is your duty, and I mean that. It is your duty to your international community members to organize, to get connected, and to make a plan.

[00:03:21] Speaker: We have seen the federal government strategy of targeting international students as a means of tearing apart our higher education system.

[00:03:29] It started on March 8 with the unexpected detention of Palestine activist Mahmoud Kahlil of Columbia University.

[00:03:37] In the days following, we witnessed horrifying videos of plainclothes ICE officers ambushing and detaining international students connected to Palestine activism.

[00:03:47] We’ve seen a shift in strategy and a broadening of scope. Now, international students across the country are the target. Here at the UO at least four students have had their visas revoked and immigration status terminated.

[00:03:59] The revocations that these students face are being used as a weapon to target a higher education system that has historically fought for civil rights and protection of its community.

[00:04:09] Attacking these students is an attack on your education and your livelihood. If we let them, they will not stop here.

[00:04:18] Speaker: We ask this University administration to protect students, students’ free speech, and the university as a whole.

[00:04:24] To protect students looks like ceasing compliance with the DHS and info gathering, with or without a warrant.

[00:04:30] That means not sharing students’ photos, contact info, class schedules, or content from code of conduct violations.

[00:04:37] That means not divulging student involvement in clubs, rallies, political or union organizing.

[00:04:42] That looks like President Scholz issuing a public statement, reassuring the UO community that every effort will be made to protect UO students.

[00:04:49] The university should install signage denying ICE access they should deny ICE officers who don’t display a valid warrant.

[00:04:57] We also ask the university to notify students whose info has been accessed by DHS and communicate urgently with students whose legal status may be changed.

[00:05:06] The university must use its UO Alerts system to notify via email and text the student body of any ICE activity near or on campus.  

[00:05:15] In cases of deportation proceedings initiated against a student, the University must also offer to connect them with dedicated lawyers and legal support, as well as offering to pay any legal fees incurred in the student’s defense.

[00:05:32] To protect free speech, the UO ought to stop surveilling the student body and prohibit the use of such collected data because they already do that by federal agencies to target noncitizens.

[00:05:42] And the UO also ought not to charge student protestors and demonstrators with code of conduct violations for speaking at or participating in demonstrations. The weaponization of this policy is a direct attack on students’ rights to free speech and protest and encourages further federal overreach.

[00:05:58] This is a struggle across the country, not just here. You know, there were, there were 13 OSU international students who had their visas revoked yesterday. It’s ridiculous.

[00:06:10] This is our final demand. You all must refuse to engage in anticipatory obedience, such as removing or otherwise altering academic programs, websites, syllabi, course materials, or course titles.

[00:06:22] Speaker: We have seen universities around the country surveil student protestors over this last year for opposing an ongoing genocide in Palestine. This has led to suspensions and expulsions all across the country.

[00:06:36] DHS and ICE have said they’re doing visa revocations under the guise of antisemitism in the name of protecting Jewish people. I once again say, don’t watch what they say, but watch what they do.

[00:06:50] I say, this does not protect Jewish people in any way. You can see this from Elon Musk doing the Nazi salute. You can see this as Trump continues to uphold Christian nationalism.

[00:07:08] Speaker: Under the current president, we have seen unparalleled attacks on student organizers and international students. The first victims of this Gestapo-style attacks were Mahmoud Khalil and Noor Abdalla, the soon-to-be parents who were terrorized by ICE before Mahmoud was black-bagged in the middle of the night by plainclothes officers, leaving his eight-month-pregnant wife without any answers.

[00:07:35] Mahmoud was sent to a detention center across state lines and told his green card would be removed with no evidence provided as to a reason or crime he might have been accused of. (Shame!)

[00:07:47] The Trump administration has admitted his potential deportation is not based on any potential broken law or substantial charges with any evidence, but instead based on a dislike for his political position. (Shame!) This will set a precedent. Can the administration deport people for their political speech? Does the First Amendment mean anything anymore?

[00:08:12] Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. jeopardizes U.S. policy to combat antisemitism. Trump and his cronies want to falsely tie anti-Zionism to antisemitism and use that to smear antigenocide activists and deport anyone who disagrees with their fascism and genocide.

[00:08:35] Immigrants across the country are being harassed by ICE in plainclothes, dragged away without any contact or due process. This is a reality that has shaken the immigrant communities around this country.

[00:08:47] None of us are safe under this administration. It starts with the most vulnerable of us, and if we don’t take a stand for them, it’ll be us they come for next.

[00:08:55] It is our duty to demand this university defend its students. And if they fail to do that, it’s our duty to organize, to prepare and to resist.

[00:09:08] Speaker: Right now, we’re at a crossroads in history. We’re looking around us and we’re recognizing the semblances of rising fascism. We as a university, as a nation, are not just facing direct attacks on our peers. We are facing a choice. We can either sit and watch as our peers are taken, kidnapped, disappeared, or we can fight, fight to protect them and fight the federal administration, which is telling us that they do not belong here.

[00:09:39] This university has an obligation to its students and an obligation to ensure that our education and our rights are protected. We can’t wait for the University to gain the courage to finally do something to protect us because they’re scared of what the federal government might do to their investments.

[00:09:54] For the last year, I’ve been looking at this campus, at this country, at the world, and I’ve had this fear that I would never be able to do enough, that no amount of work would be able to make a lasting change to prevent the rise of fascism we’re seeing now.

[00:10:09] But looking at what we’ve been able to do in the last week, the way that we’ve responded to this moment, looking at all of you standing here with me today, I’m not feeling this fear. I’m feeling power and strength, and that power is real. We must continue to stand together until they make things right, not a second less.

[00:10:36] This fight doesn’t stop here and it doesn’t stop with us. This fight must continue within each and every one of us. It must be brought into our classrooms, into our clubs, into our organizations. There shouldn’t be a soul on this campus that isn’t aware of our struggle, and it must continue until ICE feels the same fear on this campus that we have felt for the past months.

[00:11:03] This is a fight I know that we can win because this university now knows that the next time an international student has their visa revoked, the next time a student protester is threatened with suspension or expulsion, when DEI is put on the chopping block, we’ll be right back here, standing here together stronger than we were before.

[00:11:27] Speaker: Today we stand in solidarity with 20 or more of our fellow students across campuses in Oregon who are facing deportation, because their struggle is our struggle.

[00:11:37] Our fellow students who have had their visas revoked and are being told to self-deport, these students are not just numbers or statistics. They’re our classmates, our friends, our coworkers. They contribute to the culture of our campus.

[00:11:53] When ICE targets students on campuses, they target the very foundation of what a university should stand for: a place of learning, growth, and opportunity for all.

[00:12:03] We must ask ourselves: What kind of institution do we want the University of Oregon to be? Will it be a university that abandons its students when they face injustice? Or will we be a community that stands unified against policies that tear us apart?

[00:12:19] Not one more deportation, not on our campus and not in our community. Join the ICE Watch. This is a moment that calls upon all of us to be brave enough to stand up for what is right.

[00:12:30] Jason Sydes: My name is Jason Sydes. I’m faculty over at the Knight Campus and I’m here today in solidarity with all our international students. As faculty, we have the greatest gig in town. Sure, we do our best to teach our students and inspire curiosity, but the great thing about this job is how much our students teach us.

[00:12:47] Our international students, in particular, bring us completely fresh and fascinating perspectives. They teach us about their rich cultures and histories. They help their fellow students better prepare for an interconnected world. International students, you enrich our lives and communities. Thank you.

[00:13:12] But now our international students are being targeted by a xenophobic federal administration, a fascist government hell-bent on whitewashing the population, expelling students with religions that they don’t like, with political views they don’t like, with names that don’t sound Christian enough or white enough, homogenizing this country until the only people remaining look like me.

[00:13:37] Well, you know what? F— that.

[00:13:45] I want to live in a world where we celebrate diversity and our international students help us do just that.

[00:13:55] But now a Gestapo organization is terrorizing our international students, trampling on due process, dangling the threat of imminent deportation.

ICE behaves like a terrorist organization. It abducts people off the street, like Fulbright Scholar and Tufts University grad student Rumeysa Ozturk for the crime of authoring an op-ed piece in the student newspaper. (Shame!)

[00:14:23] Mahmoud Khalil sits in ICE detention in Louisiana, for daring to stand against the genocide of his people. This is unacceptable.

[00:14:35] Even the way that DHS is using minor administrative missteps to target our international students is a form of bureaucratic violence, a paperwork terrorism with the machinery of the state weaponized against our vulnerable students, all while clinging to a false veneer of legal respectability.

[00:14:53] A full-throated legal defense is one of the most effective ways UO and universities across our country can resist the federal government’s assault on higher education. Additionally, University of Oregon needs to make a commitment to these targeted students that they will be able to finish their education and earn their degrees, without any further financial hardship. It’s imperative that UO honors that commitment.

[00:15:16] In particular, targeted grad students will lose their funding because of their new legal status, which makes it so important that UO admin find alternative means of funding these students either through donor money or UO foundation money.

[00:15:28] And while I understand the motivation behind University of Oregon’s strategy trying to fly under the radar unnoticed if you and the other universities across our nation all lay down quietly to avoid attention, that’s just anticipatory obedience and the federal government will happily trample over higher education.

[00:15:49] Now is not the time for timidity. Now is the time for UO to boldly stand up and fight loudly and proudly for our international students, faculty, and staff.

[00:16:00] What the federal government is doing right now is nothing less than a full-frontal assault on higher education across our nation. The time to fight is now. University of Oregon: Stand up and do the right thing. (Thank you.)

[00:16:15] Presenter: Students organize and plan to share the University’s response to their demands. They’re asking the UO to defend higher education from the Trump administration.

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Field recordings by Todd Boyle for KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks Community Radio.