Victor Ortega RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The Rio Grande Valley Youth Democratic Socialists of America members are advocating to protect college campuses from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “intimidation” tactics with a petition.
KVAQ-TV spoke with RGV YDSA President Jacob Becho to learn more of the group’s current movement.
“Basically, [Trump is] deporting everyone and everything like everyone and anything. And, we think that’s a very horrible response to what’s going on and the plight of a lot of migrants in this country,” Becho said.
According to an Instagram post from RGV YDSA, the organization states the increase in detainment of non-citizen students by ICE is the reason for their current campaign.
Flyers are all around both UTRGV campuses asking students to sign a petition for the university to become a sanctuary school which means the university would not cooperate with immigration officials.
“Our petition is basically asking the university to do non-cooperation with immigration law enforcement, and basically to inform students whenever, like, ICE might be on campus,” Becho said.
If the petition gets enough signatures, the group aims to present it to the Dean of Students Ismael Amaya.
A senate bill passed in 2017 by the Texas Legislature poses a major issue for the RGV YDSA petition as Alvaro Corral, a political science assistant professor explained.
“Local cooperation with federal officials has already sort of been settled by the State of Texas in a previous legislative session. Where the state legislature passed a law mandating cooperation by local officials or, in other words, prohibiting the lack of cooperation by local entities,” Corral said.
KVAQ-TV informed Becho of the bill to which he replied that the student organization has legal advisors working with them.
In an Instagram post promoting its petition, RGV YDSA highlights ICE’s detainment on March 9 of Columbia University alumni Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder.
According to a Truth Social post from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, Khalil was arrested for engaging in a pro-Palestinian protest last year.
Trump added this is the first of many arrests to come.
When asked if non-citizen students should be worried about expressing their political opinions, Corral answered the following.
“My answer, based on recent actions taken by the Trump administration and Marco Rubio, [Secretary of the State Department], is yes, they should be concerned, because it does appear that this administration is setting a precedent for very much looking into student speech, student political speech, and making immigration decisions based on that speech that they deem as threatening to U.S. National security,” Corral said.
Some students agree with the message and mission of the RGV YDSA, like Integrated Health Sciences major Kaitlyn Moya.
“I really like the chance and a lot of it is true and strongly aligns with what I think as well. Just about how like, there’s so much hate in being able to deport Mexican-Americans,” Moya said. “It’s just really unfortunate that it is a time that we do live in.”
Other students question the group’s goal of stopping ICE entering campus and its effectiveness, like Visual Desing major Raul Martinez.
“The only problem is how do you stop them before they get close to any of our students? Because it’s a massive force,” Martines said. “They’ve got the power to handcuff you and stuff like that. So, stopping the inevitable is like, I’m not going to say impossible, it can. But, you will be detained along with the guy that’s being detained.”
RGV YDSA plans to host another event on campus on May 1.
