CFA Immigration Task Force Presents Demands to Protect Undocumented Community 

The CFA Immigration Task Force reaffirms the commitments we made to our most vulnerable members of our campus communities upon our founding in 2017. As the new academic year starts, we press the CSU administration and Chancellor Mildred García to ensure every legal defense is built to safeguard our undocumented students, CSU employees, and their loved ones. 

To that end, the Immigration Task Force developed a set of demands this last summer as a response to the ongoing attacks on the migrant population. The Immigration Task Force encourages CFA members to present these demands at our campuses, whether in Labor Management meetings or through the Academic Senate. It is imperative that we continue to hold campus administrators accountable for the safety and security of our campus communities. 

“We, as a union, will stand up and fight for the rights of our most vulnerable students and community,” said Antonio Gallo, CFA Immigration Task Force member and lecturer at CSU Northridge.”  

CFA members urge the CSU administration to be courageous and defend our right to campuses that are free of harassment, intimidation, unfair investigation, and deportation. We call on the CSU to:  

• Guarantee student privacy by refusing to release information on the immigration status of students and campus community members.  

• Declare all CSU campuses sanctuary spaces.  

• Refuse to comply with immigration authorities regarding deportations, sweeps and/or raids. 

• Refuse ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) physical access to all land owned or controlled by the CSU.   

• Provide housing for students who cannot return home over school breaks due to fear of inability to re-enter the U.S.  

• Offer more online course modalities to support students and faculty who face barriers to traditional on-campus learning due to work schedules and/or family commitments as a result of the current political climate. 

• Bring legal advisors to campuses to provide pro-bono legal counsel to undocumented students and students with undocumented family members. 

• Designate campus staff, that is not campus police, to assist undocumented students – as well as other students, faculty, and staff who may be subject to an immigration order or inquiry – whose education or employment is at risk due to an immigration action.  

• Notify the campus community if there is an ICE presence near the campus or on campus grounds.  

• Make all reasonable efforts to assist students who are detained, deported, or are unable to attend to their academic requirements due to an immigration order by helping them retain any eligibility for financial aid, fellowship stipends, exemption from nonresident tuition fees, funding for research or other educational projects, housing stipends or services, or other benefits students have been awarded or received. 

Dr. Michelle Ramos Pellicia, CFA Vice President, CSU San Marcos professor, and member of the Immigration Task Force, said she is proud of the demands. 

“They are congruent with the work we started in 2017 under the then-presidential administration’s attacks to immigration that put an end to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and threatened to deport our students and loves ones,” Ramos Pellicia said. “The demands also build on our previous work to share information about local campus-based services and organizations, as well as convince CalPERS to divest from migrant detention centers.” 

We urge our members to not be idle when the current presidential administration is threatening sanctuary cities, kidnapping and disappearing people from their homes and communities with racist and xenophobic attacks, increasing the number of ICE agents, mobilizing the Marines and the National Guard against protesters ,attacking DACA protections, and rejecting the rights of asylum seekers and those with TPS (Temporary Protected Status). 

The CSU administration must address the social, emotional, and mental health needs of our students. CSU students should have access to mental health services in this hostile, racist, and xenophobic political moment. 

Everyone has the right to learn on CSU campuses that are safe, secure, and peaceful. CSU management must commit and act to protect our students’ constitutional right to receive an education free of discrimination regardless of their immigration status. 

View the full Immigration Task Force Demands here.