Kaylie Siu
Approximately 25 people gathered in front of Geisel Library at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23, for a vigil organized by the Students’ Civil Liberties Union in solidarity with the 36 UC San Diego students who had their F-1 student visas terminated in the past month.
The vigil was led by second-year Aryan Dixit, president of the SCLU, which is a student organization that was established this year to advocate for students’ rights. Dixit began the vigil by addressing the crowd.
“It really means a lot that all of you are standing here … together, because right now that’s one of the most important things that we can do — stand together,” Dixit said. “It doesn’t matter how many of us are here, who’s here, or who isn’t, what matters is that we all know that we’re standing for something, on the right side of history.”
Visa terminations have occurred without warning and often with no explanation across the nation, including for 36 UCSD students. Dixit explained that these sudden terminations were the motivation behind the SCLU’s vigil.
“A vigil is for when a person has fully disappeared from your lives, and they can never come back,” Dixit said. “[UCSD] was the place we came together; this was where we formed our connections. … That leaves me with the question. … Who is next? If it’s one of us, if it’s one of our friends, what are we going to do? Are we going to stand here? Are we going to come together again and support them? Yes, yes, we are.”
News outlets have not reached a consensus on the number of international students who have had their visas terminated or their legal statuses revoked since the revocations began on March 8. Estimates range from 1,000 to 1,700 students.
At the vigil, Dixit called for a minute of silence to honor the students affected by the visa terminations. After the minute had passed, Dixit invited any students who wanted to speak.
An unidentified student came to the front and shared their reaction to the visa revocations.
“It’s exhausting showing up to things like this,” they said. “Everyone [is complacent] in the issue, whether it’s just not stopping to learn or educate themselves or others. It’s really tiring. … Immigration issues are Black issues, Black issues are queer issues. … We are all interconnected within the system of white supremacy.”
Gary Fields, a professor in the department of communication, also addressed the crowd. He spoke on the connection between the visa terminations and last spring’s nation-wide pro-Palestine encampments protesting the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
“In the aftermath of all of those encampment shutdowns … what happened all over the country is that the university … became a space of censorship and surveillance,” Fields said. “Really, what exists on our campus and campuses across the entire country is a feeling of fear.”
According to Politico, at least the first 300 terminated student visas were revoked due to those students’ connection to the pro-Palestine encampments.
Fields went on to speak about the Trump administration’s framing of immigration in relation to recent social movements.
“[The Trump administration] has combined this antipathy of immigrants with this weaponization of ‘anti-semitism’ to go after both those people that it describes as dangerous anti-semites and those people that it describes as criminals who are here illegally,” Fields said. “It has brought those two issues together to create an intensive climate of fear and anxiety on our campus and on campuses across the entire country.”
Dixit also addressed the San Diego County Sheriff’s collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The sheriff’s office has defended its practice of sharing immigration information with ICE, despite San Diego’s designation as a sanctuary city. This collaboration includes transferring individuals from San Diego jails into ICE custody, as well as participating in task forces with ICE agents.
Dixit ended the rally by encouraging students to organize:
“We’re gonna have to make a choice: Where do we stand, what do we stand for, and what are we going to do about it? I don’t know about all of you but I’m not just going to let my friends get deported.”
On Friday, April 25, the Trump administration announced a nationwide rollback of some student visa terminations. As of April 26, 18 UCSD students have had their visas restored.
The UCSD Guardian reached out to Dixit for comment on the Trump administration’s announcement.
“We’re cautiously optimistic about the visa renovations given that about half the previously estimated number of affected UCSD students have seen a reversal in their cancellations,” Dixit wrote.
“Furthermore, the [Department of Homeland Security] lawyers stated that they would be creating a new set of regulations to enable what is possibly their agenda of deportations,” his statement continued. “We will be considering these developments closely because it doesn’t seem like it’s over yet.”