NO ICE RECRUITMENT AT PILC FAIR
We cannot express enough our disappointment at PILC’s decision to invite the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor New York City (OPLA), the legal arm of ICE, to the PILC Fair this February.
Working with and welcoming ICE recruiters into our community is abhorrent in general, but even more so now, in the wave of violently anti-immigrant executive orders, escalated ICE raids, and the stripping of due process rights for noncitizens through the Laken Riley Act.
Two years ago, PILC attempted to bring OPLA attorneys to campus to talk with law students, and the Immigrant Rights Project penned a letter beautifully detailing how disgusting ICE, and PILC’s decision to empower the organization, is. A slightly adapted version of that letter is copied below.
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Everything ICE stands for is contradictory to what it means to be a public interest lawyer. ICE has only been around for a little under 20 years . It is designed as an agency against immigration, “to treat immigrants as a security threat.”.
Inviting ICE onto campus directly harms students. For one, many students here are immigrants themselves. To invite people from the agency that has been known for cruel treatment of migrants is to belittle the trauma suffered by many students at the hands of these ideals. Furthermore, ICE is engaged in the exact kinds of behavior that harms many students, regardless of immigration status. ICE has a history of racial profiling, retaliating against immigrant rights activists, ignoring the law, fabricating evidence, relying on false "evidence", confiscating and destroying documents and belongings of detainees, and purposeless detentions.
DHS OPLA attorneys actively advocate for deportations, which in turn cause immeasurable harm to individuals and communities. Recent harm has included:
1. Deaths and disappearances of people after ICE fought for their deportation, including Melissa Núñez, a transgender woman deported from U.S. murdered in Honduras and Walter Cruz-Zavala, who was deported and disappeared in El Salvador
2. Deporting unsuspecting immigrants at routine check-ins
3. Prolonged Detention and Unlawful Deportation
4. Defying presidential orders to halt deportations of African and Caribbean migrants, and sending migrants back on “Death Planes”
Outside of the courts, ICE has engaged in family separation, abusive treatment in detention centers, and routine violations of human rights, including:
1. Deplorable conditions and treatment at ICE detention centers, including immigrant parents dying in custody, unwanted hysterectomies and other medical procedures, sexual assault of many immigrants including children, and failure to implement effective COVID procedures.
2. Continuous disappearances of migrants without explanations
3. Family separation whose effects were felt for years after
4. The Remain in Mexico Program
5. The Travel Ban
Inviting OPLA attorneys to campus goes against NYU’s proclaimed values and commitment to its undocumented students. On September 5, 2017, NYU published a response to Session’s announcement that he intended to rescind DACA, in which they proclaimed that there was “no doubt that here at NYU, our support for Dreamers, and other undocumented members of our community, is unwavering.” They further declared to be “working to ensure that NYU’s voice on this critical issue is heard loudly and clearly” and that they would “continue to be strong advocates” for immigrant students. NYU betrays its stated ideals by inviting those who actively fight for immigrants’ deportation.
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We call on PILC to uninvite ICE from the PILC fair, and to categorically refuse to invite DHS/ICE from any future job fairs, speaking engagements, or other NYU-sponsored events. We call on NYU to stand by its stated values of protecting noncitizen community members.
In solidarity,
Over 1,000 signatories, including individual students and 75 student organizations from 15 of the 19 participating law schools, including:
New York University School of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Brooklyn Law School
Columbia Law School
Cornell Law School
CUNY School of Law
Fordham University School of Law
Hofstra University School of Law
New York Law School
Pace University School of Law
Quinnipiac University School of Law
Rutgers Law School
St. John’s University School of Law
University at Buffalo School of Law
Yale Law School