Education

‘DREAM Team’ Of Undocumented Students Partners With University To Make Campus A ‘Santuary’

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A student group made up largely of “undocumented and international students” is working with a New York university to ensure that it is a safe haven for illegal immigrants.

The New School’s Sanctuary Working Group (SWG) created a “Sanctuary Campus Scorecard” which ranks schools on their ability to operate as safe havens for illegal immigrant students. SWG is a “DREAM Team [of] undocumented and international students, allied students, and faculty and staff,” according to its website.

The group’s goal is to create a “sanctuary campus” and fight against “anti-immigrant policies.”

The New School, founded in 1919, is a progressive design university that includes Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts, The New School for Social Research, the Schools of Public Engagement and Parsons Paris.

In its “16 Points Towards A Sanctuary Campus,” the group calls on the New School faculty and staff to refuse giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) any information unless ordered to do so by a court order. The group also pressures the university to offer increased financial aid to “noncitizen students, especially undocumented students and those who might be affected by a repeal or change in DACA.”

The group also started a September 2017 petition calling for leaders to delete the DACA database.

SWG meets monthly and offers training sessions to interested parties. The group also collaborates with other New York universities like New York University (NYU) and Columbia.

“The university supports free expression by students and their right to form groups around common interests,” a New School spokesperson told Campus Reform.

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