The federal government’s escalating attack on universities endangers every member of the CUNY community. The City University’s history as a site of struggle for freedom and mass access to education demands that we at CUNY become a public voice against repression, silencing, erasure of history, and denial of rights.

As PSC/CUNY members, CUNY students, and allies, we say: No ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) or other agencies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on our campuses – including as recruiters at campus job fairs. No member of the CUNY community should study or work in fear of being unsafe on campus. CUNY’s intellectual vibrancy owes much to the diversity and international composition of its students, staff and faculty. Mass detentions and deportations, denial of fundamental rights, revocation of visas, and singling out of academic workers and students for attack all endanger the very character of our University.

While CUNY’s central administration has shared resources for immigrant students and workers and reaffirmed existing CUNY policies on immigration-related topics, the University must do more. Instead of leaving the responsibility to each college, there must be clear University-wide communications about the actions it will take in defense of any members of the University community who are targeted by ICE or other agencies of DHS.

We, the undersigned, call on the CUNY Chancellor and Board of Trustees to:

1. Refuse to capitulate to authoritarian demands that threaten academic freedom, free speech, faculty governance, free association, and our right to protest on campus; refuse to curtail CUNY’s commitment to racial, gender and other forms of diversity.

2. Provide emergency legal representation for any CUNY student or worker facing the threat of deportation or cancellation of visa.

3. Ensure that no CUNY college will allow ICE and Homeland Security to enter or recruit on CUNY campuses.