Amid rising fears and disagreements over New Mexico State University’s controversial stance on Border Control and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents being allowed on campus, one student organization has taken matters into its own hands.
The NMSU Dream Team is the university’s chapter of the statewide organization, the New Mexico Dream Team, which is dedicated to empowering diverse people in the community through education and outreach. With ICE sightings and raids on the rise since the re-election of President Donald Trump, the group has become dedicated to teaching the history of immigration and deportation in the United States. Additionally, worries pertaining to Border Patrol have been on the rise due to their potential to collaborate with ICE.
During a career fair on Feb. 12 in the Corbett Center, Border Patrol was permitted a booth for the purpose of recruitment. The Dream Team, alongside the NMSU Graduate Student Union and several concerned students and family members, in response made public statements and requested NMSU to stop collaboration with Border Patrol and partner agencies.
NMSU’s president, Valerio Ferme, addressed these concerns on Feb. 13 in an email sent to faculty and staff of the university.
“Regarding federal agency recruitment on campus, Customs and Border Protection has recruited at NMSU for years, and current staff have served in the agency,” Ferme said. “The Solomon Amendment (Title X U.S.C. § 983) requires a university receiving federal funding provide military and Department of Homeland Security recruiters access equal to any other employer. Non-compliance results in loss of federal grants – funding that supports student financial aid, faculty research, staff positions and institutional operations across our campus.”
He continued, referencing constitutional amendments such as freedom of speech to back up his stance on the requirement to provide equal opportunity to either side of the argument. To show his sympathies, he called back to a time of hardship within his own community.
“During the 1980s and 90s, I witnessed my community fight for recognition and care as the AIDS virus ravaged through countless lives. I understand the rage that comes from feeling invisible or unheard. But change happens through coalition-building, not dehumanizing those who see the world differently,” Ferme said. “As an educational institution, we must model the difficult work of holding space for conflicting perspectives while protecting everyone’s rights, as well as working internally to support all members of our community. Otherwise, we are lost in our aspirations as an educational community and as human beings.”
According to Alberto del Campo, predating this statement, claims were circling among various student groups that President Ferme said at a strategic planning town hall that the university would not collaborate with ICE, but they would give out information if it was requested. While the statement wasn’t recorded, it was stated as a motivation for the Dream Team to take action.
The allowance of ICE and CBP to recruit on campus was a pressing enough concern for the Dream Team to request signatures on a petition in their statement of denunciation, according to del Campo, one of the NMSU Dream Team’s organizers.
“The Dream Team chapter at NMSU believes the presence of ICE and CBP on our campus is dangerous and harmful…” del Campo wrote in an email. “We ask why President Ferme and NMSU administrators continue to endanger our student body, staff and faculty by collaborating with these agencies. We ask why Linda Scholz, as vice president for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, (recently renamed Office of Land-grant Inclusive Mission) hasn’t taken action to protect our Immigrant and other marginalized student groups when it is their responsibility to ensure our safety and success.”
The Round Up reached out to Linda Scholz, asking for a response as to her stance on the topic of ICE collaborating with NMSU, as it is the Office of Land-grant Inclusive’s mission “to protect our students.” All questions were later sent to Amanda Wyatt, director of Communications and Media Relations, who explained the campus’s stance on ICE and FERPA guidelines.
According to Wyatt, there are a few steps to take in case ICE or Border Patrol show up on campus: Be courteous to officers; ask for badge numbers and/or a phone number from the officers; and remember that FERPA protects all students, either documented or undocumented, from sharing their personal information without a mandated court order. Students have no obligation to provide personal information without contacting the University General Council (UGC) or Public Safety first, and all students have the right to ask for a warrant, and regardless of whether the officer shows one, they do not have to speak without reaching out to UGC or Public Safety.
“Should officers come to campus with a legitimate request to inspect and find individuals who pose an immediate threat to our community, please call the NMSU Police Department at 575-646-3311. These officers do have access to spaces where they have reason to believe that danger is imminent, or an immediate threat is located,” Wyatt said.
Del Campo also spoke on what it means to be a land-grant university. A land-grant university’s mission is to serve and assist the student body, and according to del Campo, NMSU’s administration has made no effort to assist the student body in knowing their rights.
“Instead, NMSU continues to collaborate with agencies that have repeatedly violated said rights with impunity,” del Campo said. “It does not serve New Mexico’s diverse population to have these organizations terrorizing our campus community. Their very presence on our land-grant institution is terrifying and disruptive to our academic experience.”
Del Campo continued his previous statement to state a call to action – a petition urging those in charge to stop the university’s collaboration with ICE and CBP. This petition has been passed around at NMSU-sanctioned events.
A student, Morgan Tierney stated her reasons for signing the petition.
“Campus should be a place where all students feel safe. NMSU has a responsibility to its students and the community to provide protections against ICE on campus. An organization meant to provide protection and ensure safety has instead acted in a way that endangers and harms innocent people,” Tierney said.
In a public statement, the Dream Team stated their call for NMSU to take action and their demands for the petition.
“We want leaders who will be bold and shape the future by taking a moral stance when our community is confronted with state violence and harassment. We demand an immediate ban on ICE and CBP from all future recruitment fairs, a formal policy requiring a judicial warrant for any federal immigration enforcement on campus, and a public reaffirmation of NMSU as a sanctuary for all workers and students. No human is illegal, especially in a campus that stands on stolen land,” said the Dream Team.
