Andy Zhang, president of Undergraduate Student Government at the University of Connecticut, said there was less pressure from the federal government this academic year as their priorities slightly shifted from higher education.
“The federal administration has interacted with higher education and universities in different ways than they did back [last] spring where they were directly almost revoking student visas,” Zhang said. “I feel like a year ago at the time, the federal anxieties and the federal pressures we were facing then are different, but still there.”
On April 16, 2025, USG passed a statement of position that declared a formal stance for the organization on three key issues after 13 UConn students had their visas revoked, according to Daily Campus article on April 15, 2025.
The three points where USG advocated for administrative action included a ban on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from private spaces on campus, refusals to negotiate or comply with unlawful federal demands and to establish a legal services fund for UConn members, according to USG’s Instagram.
“We felt like it was something that was really important to pass at the time to make sure that at least those students, or at least UConn students as a whole, knew that their student government was… trying to outwardly affirm that they’re going to defend their community and protect their students,” Zhang said.
Zhang added how “thankfully” ICE never came to campus that spring, but that the issue of ICE coming to college campuses has become a bigger issue because of different incidents with ICE around the country. One February interaction involved federal agents arresting a Columbia University student after they told a university apartment building superintendent they were searching for a missing child, according to the New York Times.
UConn sent an email to students, faculty and staff on Feb. 12, guiding them to call the UConn Police Department if immigration officials try and enter a non-public space, according to a UConn Today article. The guidance did not ban ICE from entering these spaces and a Q&A defined non-public spaces as ones that are locked when not in use or can only be accessed using a key card.
Zhang said he’s had conversations with a lot of administrators about the reason UConn hasn’t banned ICE from private spaces.
“The common pushback I hear is that the university tends to think delegating certain spaces as private then gives the implication that every space that is not delineated as private will therefore be interpreted as public,” Zhang said.
He added how one of the challenges in these conversations was finding someone with enough time and responsibility to figure out the necessary precautions UConn should take to protect their students.
“Finally trying to delineate between public and private [comes with] no real guarantee that will be what protects our students and stops ICE from actually coming onto or trespassing those bases,” Zhang said. “It’s been a really interesting question for all of us to try and kind of figure out what these necessary protections in these places are.”
An internal ICE memo signed by Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons on May 12, 2025, said that immigration regulations do not require judicial warrants to forcibly enter people’s homes, according to AP News.
Debate about whether to focus on distinguishing public and non-public areas on campus wasn’t the only challenge Zhang mentioned. He said USG has also been discussing how to handle community safety amid uncertainty that the UConn Police Department could aid in immigration enforcement.
“A lot of community members themselves don’t feel comfortable with knowing that if they’re in a place of distress, that UConn Police will be in a space to support them or defend them or protect their rights against ICE,” Zhang said.
The challenge comes when administrators have asked Zhang what the alternative could look like.
“I think that is a completely fair question… but coming to the agreement about what an alternative is in a way that is feasible and an actual solution that people think is effective, is somewhere in the discussion disagreement may lie,” Zhang said.
Zhang said that in discussions a coalition like UConn Students in Defense of Immigrant Communities has come into conversations as a solution but has received pushback from some administrators about how effective their response could be.