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Wednesday, January 29, 2025

A Tale of Past Times

First, an item from Inside Higher Ed:

The acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday rescinded guidance that prevented immigration arrests at schools, churches and colleges.

Since 1993, federal policy has barred immigration enforcement actions near or at these so-called sensitive areas. The decision to end the policy comes as the Trump administration is moving to crack down on illegal immigration and stoking fears of mass deportations...

Advocates for undocumented people have warned that such a policy change was possible, and some college leaders have said they won’t voluntarily assist in any effort to deport students or faculty solely because of their citizenship status, although they said they would comply with the law...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/01/23/trump-administration-allows-immigration-arrests-colleges.

Now here's a tale from the past as remembered by yours truly. Back in the mid-to-late 1990s (so after 1993 - the date mentioned in the article above), federal immigration agents, accompanied by a police officer from the UCLA police department, arrested a visiting faculty member from the Economics Department in Bunche Hall. The visitor normally taught at a Swedish university but had an arrangement to teach at UCLA for one quarter each year. Over the protests of econ faculty who asserted that the individual was in the US legally - and despite the individual producing documents verifying his legal status - he was taken from his Bunche office to some federal office in downtown LA.

After a few hours, he was released when it was determined that he was indeed in the US legally. What had occurred was a computer glitch. When he left the US the year before, the computer somehow didn't pick up his exit. So the immigration authorities thought that he had overstayed the previous year's visa. 

Given these circumstances, the campus Faculty Welfare committee - of which yours truly was a member and probably chair at the time - called in a representative from the UCLA police for an explanation. Specifically, we wanted to know why 1) a UCLA was involved in the arrest, and 2) why - given that participation - the UCLA officer did not object to the arrest when the visiting faculty member showed documentation demonstrating legal status.

Essentially, the answer we got was that the police officer wasn't actually "participating" in the arrest but was just "observing" the activities of the immigration agents and thus was not authorized to object.

The lessons from this story are 1) that official policies such as the 1993 dated policy are not always followed in practice, and 2) that the definition of participating or cooperating with immigration authorities is murky.

Perhaps another lesson is that the political climate can influence actual outcomes. If you know the history of California, then you know something about the climate at the time of the events described above. If not:


Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3x5cFl9Umo.

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