On Tuesday, the student visas of six international students were revoked by the Trump administration. This means that six of my fellow students must leave the country voluntarily or face deportation. I am livid that this cowardly university and its governors did not do more to protect them.
I am under no impression that our University holds the cards when it comes to student deportations. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, under the racist, fascist edict of President Donald Trump, has shown that it will not hesitate to silence speech that goes against the Trump administration’s values. If Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri and others can be detained for deportation on xenophobic guesswork as to their foreign affiliations, there was zero doubt in my mind that at some point Chapel Hill would add names to that list.
And unfortunately, I held no faith that the UNC System, the Board of Trustees, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Governors or Chancellor Lee Roberts would do anything to fight it. The student body has been left almost completely in the dark as to what, if any, measures would be taken to protect students from being unlawfully detained by plainclothes thugs. In fact, when asked about cooperation with ICE, our spineless chancellor declared that our administration would comply.
This means that UNC would comply with disappearances. UNC would comply with student deportations. UNC would comply with its students being denied due process, separated for weeks from their families, subjected to inhumane conditions and being sent away from their lawful home.
This inspires a chilling effect across colleges. Any person associated with campus protests against Israel's genocide can validly fear retribution; this government has shown it will go after their peers. These are people who should be fully protected under the First Amendment and not assigned outdated and legally unsound reasons for detainment according to xenophobic laws passed 75 years ago.
Despite the untenability of the Trump administration's assault on its opposition, UNC has seemingly taken their word as bond.
Beginning with the installation of Chancellor Roberts last January and continuing through attacks on DEI and campus protests (and protesters), we have repeatedly been shown by those who govern our university that they do not value their students equally. We should expect the man who, surrounded by police, smugly marched through activists to lower the Palestinian flag to cede to national figures who surely would have loved that bit of virtue-signaling. The increasingly conservative nature of the UNC System has allowed for President Trump's abuse of power to reach our peers.
Perhaps in the coming days we will receive an email entitled “Dear Carolina Community,” gesturing vaguely to this visa crisis. If that email comes, I do not expect the message nor the people behind it to have any semblance of moral fiber.
The fact our administration is lying down and allowing these students to be unjustly targeted is far past unacceptable. It is outrageous that if our peers, classmates and friends are being illegally targeted — and they very likely are — that the University is not fighting back. These are your students. They pay tuition. They attend class. They make this institution better. They are here to learn, to better our community and the nation.
