Faculty at the School of Law criticized the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and threats to international community members at a forum on Wednesday.
Alina Das, a speaker at the forum and co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic, told WSN that the clinic will hire a second attorney amid heightened fear of federal immigration enforcement. NYU has touted the clinic as a resource for immigration-related procedures to international students — who comprised almost half of total enrollment last academic year — since creating the program during the first Trump administration.
“We have a staff attorney and we’re in the process of hiring a second attorney,” Das said in an interview with WSN. “Those attorneys can provide advice, free legal consultation, referrals to appropriate legal services, and in some cases, they can provide representation for any member of the community who may be facing an immediate threat of immigration detention and deportation.”
Hosted by the NYU Migration Network, the forum featured Das and Omar Jadwat — the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project — as they discussed President Donald Trump’s attempts to restrict birthright citizenship rights for the children of non-citizens, citation of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deportations, threats to international students and efforts to use immigration law to restrict freedom of speech.
Das and Jadwat criticized the arrest of Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, claiming that it jeopardizes freedom of speech. Khalil, a legal permanent resident, was arrested earlier this month by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is currently held at a Louisiana detention center, sparking demonstrations across NYU.
Das compared Khalil’s case to an NYU student who was denied entry at John F. Kennedy International Airport after returning from Iran during the first Trump administration, following the issuance of a 90-day travel ban from countries including Iran, Iraq and Syria. She said that she is concerned about the growing attacks on individuals with legal entry permits and residence, particularly targeting them based on their ethnicity.
Jadwat added that in order to create a safe environment for students, universities should not invite ICE onto campus and should ensure students are informed about immigration-related resources available to them. He advised students to research their rights in the event of detention by law enforcement and practice how to respond to immigration officers.
“Knowing the basics of how to behave is super important,” Jadwat said in an interview with WSN. “Universities need to stand up for those basic campus free speech rights and principles, and not through silence or play into the folks who are trying to target people for the wrong reasons.”
NYU’s policy stipulates that ICE agents will only be allowed on campus if they present a valid search warrant or subpoena. The university previously told WSN that it “will comply with the law” in light of Trump’s crackdown on student visas, but has not publicized additional guidance on the matter. Last month, ICE canceled virtual interviews at an NYU Law career fair after hundreds of students petitioned against the agency’s partnership.
“Closing America off to the world is a fundamentally bad idea,” Jadwat said. “From every perspective, universities that have historically been places that are among the more open places, will suffer gravely to the extent that they’re not able to do that going forward.”
Contact Amanda Chen at achen@nyunews.com.
