Students call for sanctuary campus at YDSA rally

Tuesday afternoon, students gathered at Records Field on College Avenue to mark their petition urging University administrators to take action in protecting undocumented students. 

The rally was organized by the Rutgers chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America to recognize their petition reaching 3,000 signatures. The petition calls for a sanctuary campus, in which immigration enforcement operations would be banned from entering specific “sanctuary zones” on campus and student housing without a warrant.

YDSA’s finalized petition was delivered to Rutgers President Tate during the Camden Campus board of governors meeting the same day.

An organizer with YDSA spoke to students at the rally, urging the Rutgers Administration to take action.

“We demand that they protect our undocumented communities,” the organizer said in his speech. “Because a Rutgers that does not protect its undocumented students is a Rutgers that doesn’t protect its students”

YDSA Co-President outlined the organization’s demands for President Tate and the Rutgers Administration, citing multiple measures of protections for students, and a commitment to rejecting cooperation with immigration enforcement operations. 

“We want the protection of student data,” the co-president said. “We don’t want Rutgers to send student information or data to ICE or these other federal officers. We want sanctuary zones on campus where ICE cannot enter.”

Attendees chanted for greater protections for undocumented students on campus and decorated a banner with slogans and symbols to be used at future YDSA events. 

Attendees also wrote letters addressed to President Tate expressing their disappointment with the administration’s inaction and calling for greater protections for their undocumented classmates. 

One student said the fears around immigration enforcement operations across the country are being felt among students.

“I think it’s unacceptable that a place like Rutgers university has such a large population of students that are genuinely scared and stressed to go to class and continue on with their lives,” the student said.

Other participants highlighted their sense of community as a key motivator for their outcry. 

“It hurts to see the university is not backing the will of its students – because we are a community here,” another student said. “Rutgers is not built on these groups; it’s built on their coalescence.”

Both students and organizers voiced their displeasure with the event being confined to the designated “free expression space,” as well as the presence of the Rutgers University Police Department.

“The free speech zone, it’s ridiculous,” the YDSA co-president said. “And what it is, is repressing and retaliating against the student movement, so we definitely are against it.”

The rally was part of three YDSA events happening on each of the three Rutgers campuses. In addition to the rally in New Brunswick, YDSA representatives attended the Board of Governors meeting in Camden to deliver the petition and held an immigration enforcement safety training event in Newark.

Story By Noah Choi, Nina Davis and Andrew Hawthorne