A coalition of organizations at the University of Connecticut released a petition calling for the university to take a clearer stand against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday, Feb. 12.
The petition alleges that UConn has not been clear about how or whether it will protect the immigrant community at the school. A representative of the coalition who asked to remain anonymous said the petition’s demands offer clearer actionable steps UConn could take.
“While we do appreciate that the university is thinking about these things, we do think that their actions have been insufficient thus far to protect the UConn community, and we think that our demands are very good steps that they could be taking to keep the community safe,” the representative said.
On the same day the petition was released, UConn sent an announcement with guidance for potential interactions with immigration agents. It recommended that someone dealing with federal agents inform the agent that they are required to contact a university official to help handle the situation.
The coalition representative said that ICE “[doesn’t] sit calmly while people call people.”
“The university’s statement was insufficient in keeping its community safe because it really did not offer any clear protocols on whether university employees are being trained on how to deal with ICE,” the representative said.
The coalition supporting the petition also linked a full list of demands for UConn President Radenka Maric, the board of trustees and UConn administration.
UConn did not provide comment on the petition, but it directed students to resources like the 2025 Q&A about immigration issues on campus and the school’s list of resources for the international community.
The coalition representative said the lack of clarity in UConn’s protocol “puts the community at risk.”
“Really all they’ve said up until this point is that it’s ‘virtually impossible’ — that’s a quote from them — to designate private and public spaces, which is a very important demand that we have, because ICE needs a judicial warrant to go onto any non-public space on campus,” the representative said.
The representative also said the end goal was to ensure the immigrant community on campus feels safe.
“Those communities that we’ve worked very closely with in developing these demands have expressed time and time again that they don’t feel safe on campus,” the representative said. “They don’t feel that the administration has done enough to keep them and the rest of the community at UConn with precarious immigration status safe.”
The petition is growing close to its current goal of 1,500 signatures. The coalition representative said they had already increased the signature goal and planned to increase it again as more signatures came in.
The representative said the petition had over 1,000 signatures within the first 24 hours of its release and that the immediate support showed the “strong feeling among the UConn community that the administration should do anything in its power to keep people at the university safe.”
“A large portion of the university community is united over the issue of immigration. A large portion of the student population at the university is deeply disturbed by what we see happening and what ICE has been doing across the nation,” the representative said. “I think this is really a statement that the UConn community cares about what is happening with ICE.”