Three weeks ago, students and faculty were alarmed to find blacked-out SUVs plastered with cards reading “Federal Law Enforcement” stationed at LaGuardia Place outside Bobst Library. This came as the federal government escalated its detainments and visa revocations of noncitizens at U.S. colleges — including NYU — inciting fear and anxiety among members of the university’s international community. Hours after the vehicles’ initial sighting, with students and faculty hiding in their offices and rooms in a panic, it was revealed that the cars were Secret Service for Stern first-year Barron Trump.
“It felt real for a period of time — that ICE agents were on campus and that a student was going to get detained,” one international student, who requested anonymity out of fear of federal retaliation, said in an interview with WSN. “There was a moment of realization that this is something that is very realistic.”
The Ph.D. student said they were in constant communication with other students and faculty in the area before learning that federal agents had entered the Kaufman Management Center — across the street from the student, who was in their office at 19 W. Fourth St. They said they had asked the Department of Campus Safety for more information about the vehicles and did not receive a response.
The student said they sat in their office for a few hours as they were getting regular updates from professors in their building, but was later notified that the vehicles were potentially Secret Service in group chats with students and professors. NYU spokesperson John Beckman confirmed in a statement to WSN that the vans were not related to immigration enforcement, and that the university “made that clear” to those who reported concerns.
“In the moment of fear, people didn’t think, ‘Oh wait, Barron Trump goes to campus, and maybe that’s why we have DHS vans on campus every week,’” the student said. “There are DHS cars on campus so regularly that we’re constantly having to discern whether or not they’re there to kidnap us.”
James Byrne, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said that the Secret Service “neither investigates nor enforces any aspect of immigration law,” despite some of its vehicles carrying DHS license plates.
“The U.S. Secret Service routinely coordinates with local partners regarding protective operations,” Byrne said in a statement to WSN. “Its recent presence in the vicinity of New York University — including vehicles with Department of Homeland Security government license plates — is narrowly related to those operations.”
CAS professor Zachary Samalin, who lives in Washington Square Village near Bobst, was notified that the cars were parked by the library around noon. He then received reports that the vehicles were spotted between Washington Square Village and its playground.
Samalin told WSN his doorman informed him that the vehicles were Secret Service and they had been given permission to park there. He described the cars as black SUVs with tinted windows and license plates that read “Department of Homeland Security.”
“It could be for any agency under DHS,” Samalin said. “It was very upsetting to know that my colleagues and students and coworkers were sheltering in place and fear for their safety.”
Samalin said he “bumped into” Campus Safety head Fountain Walker, who also lives in the building, later that day. He said he asked Walker why DHS vehicles were on campus without prior notice, and that Walker had implied it was Secret Service for Barron Trump. Samalin claimed Walker “did not know” that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations were housed under DHS.
“From the perspective of the administration, knowing that these were Secret Service vehicles, there was not a need to communicate more broadly about something that’s been an ongoing situation,” Samalin said.
The Ph.D. student said that this was the first time students and faculty were concerned about federal law enforcement on campus “on a relatively schoolwide level.” They said there is a prominent “lack of information” about what to do and who at the university to call in the event that ICE agents were to detain someone on campus.
“What would Campus Safety do?” the student said. “Would anyone send out an alert? It both highlighted the fears but also the more logistical steps that maybe need to be taken so that we’re better prepared if something like this is going to happen for real.”
The student also criticized President Linda Mills’ statement confirming the visa revocations of “some” students and faculty as well as the scheduling of information sessions across NYU’s schools, saying that the university is “failing to understand the severity of the moment.”
Last week, deans at the College of Arts & Science, the Tisch School of the Arts and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study held in-person sessions for students and faculty to address concerns related to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and what protections NYU could provide. Representatives from the Office of Global Services said only NYU affiliates with recorded misdemeanors have seen changes to their visa statuses.
“This is the reality that people are living with on campuses across the country, and especially including a campus such as our own, with so much fluidity with the city and so much of an international community,” Samalin said. “That our daily lives are being disrupted — that our noncitizen students and colleagues are being censored by the federal government.”
Contact Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
