As President Donald Trump continues to assert executive orders on immigration and the detainment of undocumented people, Cal Poly has remained steadfast to support students if any encounters with the federal government were to occur on campus.
Following President Trump’s inauguration, the administration wrote a plethora of executive orders, including orders centered around immigration control and enforcement. The orders have been directed towards “inadmissible and removable” undocumented individuals residing in the country.
In an update to its webpage, Cal Poly’s Office of University Diversity and Inclusion (OUDI) outlined FAQ responses on federal immigration enforcement for students in the campus community.
Recently, OUDI plans to merge with University Personnel, a division housing the Human Resources department, according to a campus-wide email from President Jeffery Armstrong. This transition will eliminate OUDI as a standalone office.
OUDI serves as the university’s main resource for all things diversity, equity and inclusion related. The office works to ensure “excellence [is] driven by diversity, with equity at its center,” according to its website. Many additions to departmental DEI practices and initiatives have been conducted through OUDI.
Response to federal immigration enforcement
The likelihood of an agency like ICE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – raiding Cal Poly is low.
“An ICE raid on campus, I don’t think so,” said Jared Van Ramshorst, immigration law and policy expert at Cal Poly.
Van Ramshorst teaches political science and has focused on immigration politics throughout his post-graduate career.
The university does not engage with federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant present. Law enforcement on campus, or Cal Poly police, also cannot assist federal immigration officers in inquiring immigration status of students and employees.
The task of obtaining information on students for federal immigration enforcement is a difficult one at best. According to the FAQ responses by OUDI, “personal and identifiable information is protected under various privacy laws” for any handling of personal records at the university.
FERPA, or Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, serves to protect records of student information including name, mailing address, telephone number and email. This information can all be found in someone’s Cal Poly portal.
Personal information is not automatically protected unless restricted manually by a student, according to the Office of Registrar website.
However, any federal officer would still need a valid subpoena to access such student records, according to the FAQ sheet.
Resources for undocumented students
The Dream Center is one of Cal Poly’s main resources for undocumented students at the university.
Living within Student Diversity and Belonging (SDAB) in Student Affairs, the Dream Center offers supportive immigration services such as webinars for legal defense and support through academic and financial aid for students.
The center’s coordinator, Jose Guevara, “aims to create a welcoming space where undocumented students can thrive in their academic endeavors,” wrote Cynthia Lambert, director of educational communications.
Guevara could not be interviewed directly at this time.
SDAB plans to distribute “red cards” containing information on what to do if approached by a federal immigration officer, according to Lambert. The OUDI also advises students to verify the legality of any warrants used upon the arrival of an immigration officer.
Cal Poly’s Immigration Legal Defense (ILD) is a non-profit agency that also supports undocumented students by providing legal immigration services and advocacy.
The ILD offers the following free and confidential services for students:
- Detained and non-detained deportation court defense
- DACA applications and renewals
- Family petitions
- U and T visas
- Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
- Asylum
- Applications for lawful permanent resident status and citizenship
Support groups on campus
Aside from the Dream Center and OUDI, the California Faculty Association (CFA) at Cal Poly has revamped their immigration task force – a committee that the group has had since Trump’s first presidential term – to support students of undocumented status on campus.
The immigration task force is a CSU-wide committee that holds at least one representative from each campus across the state, according to Lisa Kawamura, president of CFA in SLO.
For Kawamura, this work with the task force hits close to home. In the 1940s, her family was taken into custody during Japanese internment in the country.
“It’s something very close to me,” Kawamura said, explaining the generational trauma she has dealt with as a result of this history.
Kawamura will also be distributing red cards with both Chinese and Spanish translations for students and employees to have and use. CFA is still in the process of collaborating with other groups on campus such as the Dream Center and OUDI for the immigration task force.
“How do we fortify our union and our students to deal with this discrimination,” Kawamura said.
As a result, Kawamura is insistent on making the immigration task force known on campus and asking anyone willing to join to reach out to lkawamura@calfac.org.
Correction: This article has been updated at 10:49 p.m. to correct a misspelled word.
