Pledge to Make UC Berkeley a Real Sanctuary Campus 

Stop I.C.E. Terror: Make the Student-Run and Student-Owned Eshleman Hall a Sanctuary for Immigrants at UC Berkeley

Fight for the Full Citizenship Rights of All Immigrants! Impeach and Remove Donald Trump!

Immigration is the question of the day everywhere in the world. The globalized economy, free trade measures, global warming, and the foreign policies of wealthier powers exploiting poorer nations—these factors have combined to create one of the most massive relocations of humanity across national borders in all of world history. The migrants in the caravans from Central America, through their massive marches for freedom, are leading the way in the fight against the biggest threat to human rights in the U.S. and around the world, Donald Trump. The State of California is a historic place of refuge for immigrants from all over the world and home to many growing immigrant communities.

While we embrace the UC’s designation as a sanctuary for immigrants, we cannot rely on former Homeland Security Secretary, now UC President Janet Napolitano, and the UC System administration, to make our campuses what they must become—a fighting center for the full citizenship rights of all immigrants. We must use the UC System’s status as a sanctuary to build the kind of actions that can make clear we stand with immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, and against Trump’s attacks on immigrants, both in our communities and at the border; that we stand firmly against Trump’s racist border wall, and proudly uphold the promise of freedom written on the Statue of Liberty. Defending these principles will require the active defense of immigrants on and off the campus to breathe life into those principles.

We are proud of our diverse, international community and we have shown through action that we are prepared to defend ourselves and each other. When ICE came to Berkeley last year, Berkeley students and the community mobilized in defense of the immigrant families who were terrorized by the ICE arrest in their building. When Trump announced the end of Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA), hundreds of UC Berkeley students and members of the Berkeley community mobilized on a day’s notice for the defense of DACA recipients. UC Berkeley and the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley (ASUC) must work diligently to protect the first targets of the Trump regime who are likely to be immigrants for whom the government already has records.

Immigrants with student and work visas, and approximately 750,000 youth enrolled in Obama’s program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The DACA program has offered protection to the many youth who were brought to America as small children, have grown up as Americans, and whose only home is in America. The youth enrolled in DACA have broken no laws—but they are now one of the most vulnerable groups of American immigrants simply because they gave their information to the government because Obama, at the time, promised them safety. By mobilizing the campus to defend immigrant communities we can make UC Berkeley a fighting center of the new civil rights and immigrant rights movement.

Eshleman Hall is a student-owned, student-run building at UC Berkeley. The student government, Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), is in charge Eshleman Hall.

We the undersigned pledge to take action to make UC Berkeley a genuine sanctuary campus for all immigrants:

1.     Make the ASUC the first sanctuary student government in the nation by declaring Eshleman Hall a refuge and safe haven for undocumented immigrants and families fleeing ICE deportation, and utilizing its resources and authority to mobilize defense of immigrants facing deportation or internment in immigrant concentration camps across the country.
2.     Defend undocumented immigrant students from immigration raids and the threat of deportation, and international and Muslim students from registry, by not cooperating or collaborating with Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
3.     Mobilize and taking action to stop I.C.E. terror: defend our friends, family, neighbors, classmates, and co-workers against I.C.E. raids and deportations (“Don’t Walk On By”).
4.     Stop Trump’s attacks on immigrants: Asylum for All – Let the Caravans in, defeat the “Remain in Mexico” policy, no child separation, shut down the immigrant concentration campus, defeat Trump’s wall, open the borders, defend DACA and TPS, and defeat the Muslim Ban.
5.     Make UC Berkeley a Hispanic Serving Institution (25% Latina/o students) NOW, and to double Latina/o, black, and Native American student enrollment overall.
6.     Restore the Latin American Studies Department as a bonafide major.