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At Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, President Thuy Nguyen is racing against time to figure out ways the community college can be a safe haven — both legally and in spirit — for its undocumented students, of which there are close to 400.
Like many school officials across the country, Nguyen is anticipating a crackdown on illegal immigration, which president-elect Donald Trump has promised, and considering what it would mean for Foothill College to declare itself a “sanctuary campus.”
“The legal ramification” of the term, said Nguyen, a lawyer and herself an immigrant, “is basically a communication to the Trump administration that there will be a resistance.”
Since the election students and faculty across the country have lobbied for their institutions to declare themselves sanctuary campuses, a term inspired by sanctuary cities that vow not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. A petition calling on Stanford University to take this action has collected more than 2,000 signatures from student, faculty and alumni.
A group of Palo Alto parents penned a letter to the school board this week asking for the district’s trustees to “show unusual courage in the face of the great potential harm posed by the Trump administration” and declare Palo Alto schools as sanctuaries for immigrant families.
The board, in turn, expressed strong support on Tuesday for a resolution that designates Palo Alto Unified schools as “safe sanctuaries” for students and families from immigration enforcement officials.
As Jan. 20 fast approaches, however, school officials are considering what the amorphous term actually means, with some eying ways to go beyond what they say is at this point a mostly symbolic declaration.
The Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees this week unanimously approved two resolutions, one that calls on Trump to continue the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors to stay in the country and attend school; and a second that states the community college district will not release student records, unless authorized by a student or required by law, to nor cooperate with any federal or state effort to create a registry of people based on any legally protected characteristics, such as religion, national origin, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. The district also resolved not to detain, question or arrest any students solely on the basis of their immigration status.
Foothill College is exploring more concrete ways to support and protect its undocumented students.
“When you talk about or work or serve communities that have always been living in fear or living within a level of anxiety and then now it’s accelerated, and rightly so that it’s accelerated in light of the language of our politics today, we have to do things that are really authentic and true to what they need — not surface work,” Nguyen said. “That’s why I think we have to be thoughtful around that process and not be too quick to react to certain things that may be popular to do but are not necessarily helpful.”
Nguyen, along with the De Anza College president and the community college district’s chancellor, joined hundreds of college and university presidents, including Stanford’s, in signing a letter that calls for the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. She has reminded staff that any federal request for student information must go through her office and said at an immigration panel at Foothill last month that her default response will be to demand a court subpoena to release anything. She is also reviewing all of the community college’s processes and forms to identify where students might be asked to share their undocumented status or addresses, for example, to see if there are actual legal requirements for doing so and assess whether Foothill could legally waive such a requirement.
“If there is no legal ability to make such changes, then we will also explore possible legislative changes in Sacramento,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen is also convening a group of administrators and faculty.
“What we are doing is exploring everything we could do that constitutes what one would call a sanctuary college without necessarily declaring that,” she said.
Nguyen is not alone in her hesitation. While some U.S. schools have answered their communities’ calls to label themselves sanctuary campuses, others have decided against doing so. Harvard University’s president, for example, chose not to, stating that it “offers no actual protection to our students. I worry that in fact it offers false and misleading assurance.”
Other campus leaders have worried it could also draw unwanted attention from immigration officials to their undocumented students.
Palo Alto school board Vice President Ken Dauber expressed similar concerns about a resolution proposed by two of his colleagues at Tuesday’s board meeting. The draft resolution declares Palo Alto schools to be “sanctuaries for students to the fullest extent allowed by law.”
While not disagreeing with the resolution’s intent, he worried it amounts to “over-promising.”
“The fact is that we can be non-cooperative with the federal government to the extent permitted by law. We cannot unfortunately guarantee the safety of students in our schools,” he said. “I don’t want to create in people a false impression about what’s possible to do.”
Board President Terry Godfrey, who with trustee Melissa Baten Caswell drafted the resolution, told the Weekly that that sanctuary is “more of an attitude and position you take to reaffirm your value of your students.”
Stanford, meanwhile, affirmed its support for students regardless of immigration status after the election. The university does not collect or share information about students’ immigration statuses and would not provide such information to law enforcement unless legally required.
The university will “advocate for (federal) policies consistent with its commitment to members of our community who are undocumented,” Stanford said. “Our support for all members of our community, including undocumented students, remains firm.”
Ravenswood City School District Superintendent Gloria Hernandez-Goff, whose jurisdiction includes East Palo Alto and east Menlo Park, said she is not worried that making sanctuary declarations could actually harm rather than protect students. To decide against establishing educational institutions as safe spaces in today’s political climate, she said, is an “abdication of responsibility.”
“Education is not just about academics. It really involves looking at the common good and some very basic acknowledgment of civil liberties and human rights,” she told the Weekly. “I think as educators, we have to stand up.”
Ravenswood, for its part, is also considering a resolution that will reaffirm its protections for undocumented students and families, including refusing to share information with the federal government that “jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our children,” Hernandez-Goff said. The city also plans to more widely disseminate information about its longtime sanctuary status, she said.
Since Trump’s election, undocumented immigrants have become worried about the government having access to personal information they provided when signing up for protections afforded under the Obama administration or locally, from DACA to a new California law that allows undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses.
In East Palo Alto, some Ravenswood parents refused to sign their children up for free and reduced lunch at the start of this school year, Hernandez-Goff said, explicitly fearful of giving the government their information.
The specifics of Trump’s immigration policy remain to be seen, and they may be changing from his pre-election rhetoric: In a TIME Magazine interview last week, he indicated he would consider the situations of immigrants who have been able to attend school and work without threat of deportation under the executive action.
“We will work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” he told TIME.
Trump, however, is also still committed to building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and has said he plans to immediately deport millions of undocumented immigrants with criminal records after his inauguration in January (a softening from his campaign promise to deport all of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants).
After he secures the border, Trump said in a Nov. 13 interview on the TV show “60 Minutes,” he will consider how to address those who are undocumented but do not have criminal records, whom he called “terrific people.”
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Doors lead to the adult and adolescent inpatient unit at the Mills-Peninsula Health Services, where a new team of Stanford Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Health doctors will start working in 2017. Photo by Veronica Weber. -
Teresa Lee will host a night of comedy to benefit the Bay Area Rescue Mission on Dec. 23. Photo by Ari Scott.
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Seriously, people, calm down! I don’t understand the hysteria about “sanctuary” this & that. Anyone who has actually listened to Trump knows that law-abiding illegal aliens don’t have much of anything to worry about. Evil criminals, yes, regular people, not so much.
Please give the guy a chance & stop the hysterical response to fake news scaremongering, ok? It is getting so tiresome. I am sure he will propose a sensible solution for everyday people. Until that comes out it would be nice if counties & states would stop spending taxpayer money *in the anticipation* of something “dire” happening. Geez, I realize this is a liberal area, but get a grip, he is not evil! Really, he is not!
I have an idea. Why don’t all the people that are lobbying for sanctuary status and signing petitions put their money where their mouths are and PAY for all those illegal immigrants to stay in school rather than placing the financial burden on taxpayers? Some taxpayers feel that our immigration laws should be obeyed and do not feel a financial obligation to educate those whom have entered the country illegally. However they might be okay with those students staying if all the do-gooders were wiling to pick up the tab. They could form a philanthropic organization and raise money to support their cause (hmmm – what’s the cost of educating 400 Foothill students?). Just a thought…
If you look at the post just below yours, you’ll see someone who also supports Donald Trump but has a completely different interpretation of what he’s going to do. One of you must be wrong, and most people are going to err on the side of caution, especially when the cost is losing valuable members of our community.
@Light Bulb, I’m deeply saddened that you lack empathy so much so that you would begrudge people simply trying to get an education. Have you met someone who is undocumented? You probably have, and they’ve probably gone to school with your children. They are people all the same and deserve our support as members of our community.
“law-abiding illegal aliens”
This is why you and your ilk have been completed removed from any control in government.
The voters have decided that they would rather give Trump the nuclear launch codes than let you people run the White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the majority of governorships, or the majority of state legislatures. That is not because of how great Trump is but how truly awful your policies are.
Seriously, until you think about your policies and the silly words coming out of your mouths, we are not going to give you any control over the government.
@USA, I suggest you take a look at the vote here in California, Santa Clara County, and Mountain View. We’ve got plenty control over the government and we’re quite happy with our representation here. The rest of the country will take a little time to come around, but your divisive and mean-spirited disdain for your neighbors and your community has been handily rejected here. Your seething hatred is what’s made the Republican party and Donald Trump unpalatable in California.
I wish you the best, perhaps in time you will meet some of your neighbors and learn to feel empathy.
Tina: ‘Seriously, people, calm down! I don’t understand the hysteria about “sanctuary” this & that. Anyone who has actually listened to Trump knows that law-abiding illegal aliens don’t have much of anything to worry about. Evil criminals, yes, regular people, not so much.’
Ha ha. Good one. So when Trump sets a policy in motion, he will personally intervene to make sure the innocent are unharmed. What’s the line economist Brad Delong likes to use? “If only the czar knew what his cossacks were doing…” Yeah, I’m sure that policies to deport millions of people (“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.”) will be carried out with the utmost attention to detail and the little father Donald Trump will be there for anyone treated unfairly.
‘Please give the guy a chance’
This is one I line I would dearly love to have explained to me, and I’ve heard it a lot. If I’m not mistaken, Trump will become president on January 20 whether I like it or not. That’s his ‘chance’ whether I ‘give’ it to him or not. Is there a way I can refuse to give him this chance? Please let me know. If not, please don’t spout comforting nonsense.
Why do people think that undocumented people do not pay any taxes? DO gas stations return the tax money on the gay they buy? Does Starbuck’s return their taxes whey they buy a cup of coffee?
I know things are so emotional right now that some are incapable of any logical thinking but read this article and then think about it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/undocumented-immigrants-and-taxes/499604/
You,can keep chanting this rhetoric as often as you want but you can’t change the fact that illegal is illegal. they broke the law coming here and it’s time to pay the price.
I’ve broken the law, fortunately it was for a minor thing and I paid a minor price….I was speeding, got pulled over, paid a ticket. Minir violation, minor fine. Bigger the violation, bigger the fine.
Sneaking into a country without proper documentation and paperwork, that’s a BIg issue. and it carries a big penalty.
And before you go shouting they’re just trying to get a better life…..so are all those others waiting in their home countries, filing paperwork, spending money to attorneys and legal funding to try to get here. So what exs lty makes Tim ok for all these ILLEGALS.
“School districts, colleges consider what it means to be a ‘sanctuary campus'”
They should keep considering, because I think they still don’t understand. It means sheltering people who have crossed the border in violation of U.S. law. I like immigrants. I like refugees too. But some people seem to have fallen into a kind of never-never land where borders are fictitious and rules about who may and may not enter the country are an injustice.
@ivg, we do need enforcement of our borders, combined with a large increase in the number of legal immigrants we accept. We are in agreement on that.
But for the students here and in our elementary, middle, and high schools, they are here solely because their parents brought them. They’ve grown up as Americans and may not have even known they were undocumented until they wanted to apply to college. Don’t we have a duty as neighbors to protect these vulnerable members of our communities? They’re here through no fault of their own, and are we so uncaring as a community that we would just cast the aside. We have better values than that.
@mvresident2003. It’s been pointed out multiple times that calling people “illegals” is dehumanizing rhetoric. Please try to be respectful even if you disagree with people.
To address your discussion of law-breaking, why is it that you consider presence in the United States to be such a grave violation? All other things being equal, your speeding ticket has far more potential for harm. The risk of a fatality rises dramatically past 30 mph, so you put actual lives at risk, yet you walked away with a small fine. An otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrant simply does their job and cares for their family, not endangering anyone. Yet somehow, you think that is a greater crime.
We often lose perspective on what our goals actually are with regards to abstract policies, so it’s useful to come back to our rationales for what we choose to do as a society. This helps us step back from emotionally charged rhetoric and ensures that our actions align with our values as a community.
@Randy:
“They’ve grown up as Americans and may not have even known they were undocumented until they wanted to apply to college.”
Really? Do you know how many of these students came here as kids too young to remember, and how many came as teenagers mostly aware of what’s going on? Sure, the ones featured in supportive news articles about the DREAM Act are as American as apple pie, but I can’t believe those are representative cases.
“An otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrant simply does their job and cares for their family, not endangering anyone.”
That’s true, but only because you’ve added a restrictive clause. I would support an effort to root out and deport illegal immigrants who have committed felonies. It’s not clear how far our school and college districts are planning to go, but San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy shelters all illegal immigrants without regard for (post-immigration) criminal history. Do you support this policy too?
P.S:
“It’s been pointed out multiple times that calling people ‘illegals’ is dehumanizing rhetoric. Please try to be respectful even if you disagree with people.”
I prefer to spell out “illegal immigrants.” But the name “undocumented immigrants” is a euphemism. I’m an immigrant and a naturalized citizen. If a robber were to take away my driver license and Social Security card, I would arguably also be undocumented.
Randy. Again with the vernacular. Let’s try this from a different angle then.
Someone who is here “undocumented” is illegal. Pure and simple, if you aren’t here legally, you’re illegal.
“Oh, but they’re nice people” you say (and I agree, many if not most are very nice). “They’re just trying to better themselves, provide for their families” you say. Fair enough, again I agree.
So a guy goes in to a bank and robs it…he’s just trying to ‘get ahead’, provide for himself/his family. Is this OK?
@ivg, I don’t quite understand why their understanding of what’s going on is an issue. What would you recommend a teenager that’s 13 who knows what their partners are choosing do? Stay behind alone without their parents? Or go along with them? You don’t seem to be trying to empathize with these children.
With regards to the restrictive clause, studies show that illegal immigrants commit other crimes at roughly the same rate as legal immigrants.
I only take issue with what mvresident continues to do, which is constantly refer to them as “illegals.” This takes a descriptive adjective and turns it into the sole noun when discussing people. The fact that he continues to do it further makes it clear that it’s a conscious decision to dehumanize them.
@mvresident, I’m truly sorry that you keep referring to these people as “illegals.” We’ve tried to educate you on this, but you refuse to listen. A person cannot be “illegal,” but they can be here illegally. Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend? Perhaps the circles you run in always refer to them as such, but maybe you realize now that it’s a dehumanizing way to talk about these people. Maybe one day you’ll talk with them and start to view them as people. I can only hope.
You refused to recognize that your speeding ticket endangered far more lives than an otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrant, yet the penalties are far smaller. Is that just? Your hypothetical bank robber is endangering people, so I have no problem considering that wrong. Why is it so difficult for you to find empathy?
@Randy:
“I don’t quite understand why their understanding of what’s going on is an issue.”
I don’t either, but you brought this up and I quoted you on it.
@ivg, I can only assume you found the rest of my argument convincing and persuasive, since you made no attempt to rebut it.
I didn’t refuse to recognize anything, I said I broke the law speeding and I accepted and paid the penalty. But from your perspective it’s ok to break the law as long as you’re not endangering people. So it’s ok for me to go down and break into an ATM and take what I want?
Again, quite simply, we are a nation of laws. It is one of the many things that makes this country so great. An illegal alien has broken the law. They CHOSE to come here illegally. And they should be prepared to accept the penalty for that.
We’re discussing justice. You recklessly endangered lives just so you could get where you’re going sooner, but you act as if you have some moral high-ground over people whose only other crime is being in the country.
Similarly, you’re glossing over the fact that the students involved here were likely brought over when they were too young to understand or, even if they did, had little to no agency in the decisions being made.
Empathy involves trying to understand someone else’s experiences. Have you honestly tried to put yourself in the shoes of the people you’re so willing to cast aside and whose family you want to tear apart?
@Randy, I found the rest of your argument muddled and self-contradictory. You’ve confused the appeal to empathy with a utilitarian argument based on crime rates. You’ve gone back and forth on whether or not illegal immigrants’ age of arrival matters. You’re consistent only in your disregard for law, instead resorting to ad hoc arguments about what society ought to do. I’m not interested in carrying on a discussion on these terms.
Perhaps most importantly, immigration is a federal matter. Liberals suddenly have great enthusiasm for local government, even though many of the same people lamented the loss of the federal Voting Rights Act and cheered the overturn of Prop 8 in Obergefell v. Hodges.
@ivg, it’s really disappointing that you can’t even bother to address my points, but not all that shocking from a conservative cornered into the sociopathy of their beliefs. Please point out where my argument contradicted itself. I’m eagerly waiting for examples.
Here’s a further hint: appeals to empathy and utilitarian appeals are not mutually exclusive. Citing multiple ethical frameworks helps strengthen an argument, not detract from it.
“it’s really disappointing that you can’t even bother to address my points, but not all that shocking from a conservative cornered into the sociopathy of their beliefs”
Here we go with the insults.
“Please point out where my argument contradicted itself. I’m eagerly waiting for examples.”
I already gave you two.
“Here’s a further hint: appeals to empathy and utilitarian appeals are not mutually exclusive.”
Both are valid, but using them in the same breath is like putting ice cream on a hamburger.
You really can’t come up with anything, and need to resort to a weird hamburger simile? One of your posts might have content someday, but until then, it’s pretty clear you have no rebuttal.
This is so typical. A constant, repetitive, diatribe that refuses to discuss the issue but instead uses a passive aggressive stance based on ideology rather than reality.
iVg suggests he’s not interested in carrying on a discussion on those terms and I would argue that it’s never been a discssuion, rather a oneway railroading by Randy
MVR, please take your grudges elsewhere, unless you have something to contribute to the conversation.
Why do you feel justified in recklessly endangering people? And so morally superior that you begrudge people doing nothing but working to improve their station.
There but for the grace of God go I.