A group of students handed NYU administrators a petition calling on the university to expand protections against immigration authorities on Wednesday morning. The petition states that NYU needs to explicitly outline a plan to support noncitizen students as the Trump administration pushes deportations and detainments across college campuses, having revoked more than 300 student visas over the past few weeks. 

The students demanded NYU create an alert system that notifies community members when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are on campus, mirroring Campus Safety’s crime notification system. They also requested that administrators who oversee disciplinary action remove protest-related sanctions from noncitizens’ records within three weeks of their issuance. 

“We gave NYU until April 9 to respond,” YDSA representative Tej Budhram told WSN. “And if not — we will be back, rallying around this.” 

Around 20 students gathered outside of Bobst Library and gave a physical copy of the letter to university spokesperson John Beckman. They briefly explained the petition to Beckman, who said he received the message on behalf of NYU’s Office of the President, before dispersing.

“We understand your concerns,” Beckman told students at the delivery.

The petition received over 130 signatures — more than 50 of which were from professors — across 10 different on-campus organizations. Budhram, who spearheaded the initiative, said the petition is unique because it was endorsed by several student groups — such as Young Democratic Socialists of America, NYU College Democrats and three on-campus unions — who rarely sign off on the same proposal. 

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has overseen arrests of at least nine pro-Palestinian students and faculty from U.S. universities, despite some of them holding permanent residency, and touted intentions to continue the spree. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined plans to more closely monitor international students’ social media for “a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture.”

“It’s all about protecting free speech on campus and seeing that there’s no tax on free speech,” Natalie May, a member of NYU’s graduate student union, told WSN. “This is all about supporting students — not only immigrant students and international students, but also protecting free speech on campus and making sure we can all stand up.”

When previously asked about the Trump administration’s immigration policies and heightened ICE activity, Beckman said NYU would “comply with the law.” He also said that Campus Safety officers had been trained to not provide any personal information regarding a member of the community unless legally required to do so, and that in most cases, students will be notified of such a request. 

NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors have also recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump’s administration’s efforts to deport noncitizen pro-Palestinian protesters and called for NYU to take similar legal action. The professors referenced the university’s involvement in a 2017 lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s travel ban to certain countries and emphasized “the importance of free movement across borders in pursuit of scholarship.”

“NYU has not put any of these protections in place, and, in fact, has blatantly collaborated with ICE and set itself up to capitulate directly to the Trump administration,” College Democrats member Mina Farahmand said in an interview with WSN. “We’re asking for NYU to stand behind the values that it claims to have.”

Contact Amelia Hernandez Gioia at [email protected].