APSCUF’s September 2017 legislative assembly approved the following statement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program:
Whereas the Trump Administration has announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will end in March 2018, leaving an unknown number of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education students vulnerable to deportation; and
Whereas the State System’s response was to release a statement offering a vague hope that Washington, D.C., will provide a legislative solution, and promising in the meantime that the universities will respond to Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE) raids by explaining that we don’t ask our students to identify their immigration status, and therefore we couldn’t comply with a request to hand over our Dreamers even if we wanted to; and
Whereas those students are now in a position where the only protection they have from the State System depends on their not having identified themselves as DACA recipients, even though they previously had no reason not to do so;
Therefore, be it resolved that:
- APSCUF chapters agree to compile and publicize a list of legal resources available to students in the communities where we have institutions.
- APSCUF will ask legal counsel to provide guidelines to faculty regarding our rights and responsibilities in the event of ICE or other government agents’ requests for information about students.
- APSCUF will announce as our organizational position that faculty will not turn over information about Dreamers if those students have identified themselves to us, to the extent that such a position is consistent with the legal position articulated in Item 2.