The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina has criticized UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts’s comments earlier this week, in which he indicated he intends to comply with federal law and ICE officials. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a directive rolling back Biden administration policies that prevented ICE officials from making arrests in “sensitive areas” such as schools and churches.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens—including murders and rapists—who have illegally come into our country,” reads the DHS statement. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
“If we’re asked by law enforcement, we’re going to comply with any requests from law enforcement about that or anything else,” said Roberts, according to WRAL. “We’re going to follow the law, and that’s been our consistent posture.”
On Thursday, the ACLU of North Carolina sent a letter to Chancellor Roberts criticizing his remarks.
“A decision to prioritize voluntary cooperation with ICE over protecting the well-being of students, staff, and faculty is deeply troubling and exposes the university to legal risk,” reads the letter. “As detailed in this letter, broad compliance by UNC-Chapel Hill with ICE or CBP requests for student information will likely violate FERPA and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”
According to Roberts, UNC has approximately 3,000 international students, including both undergraduate and graduate students, making up about 10% of the university’s total population. These students may be affected by other Trump administration policies related to travel and visas. UNC officials told WRAL that enhanced security measures and additional screening checks could lead to longer processing times.
“When it comes to a conflict of law question, we’ll seek legal counsel and be guided appropriately by experts,” continued Roberts. “While I can’t really put myself in the shoes of someone whose immigration status might be affected by change in policies, I’m well aware of the anxiety, and we’ve heard a lot about it and we’re going to continue to serve our immigrant students and scholars as best we can.”
North Carolina State University (NC State) would also be impacted by the new directive from the Trump administration. NC State has over 5,400 international students, including 1,755 recent graduates in post-completion training.
“NC State complies with all federal laws and is monitoring the new directives,” NC State told Carolina Journal in a statement.
The Higher Ed Immigration Portal estimates that 3,000 undocumented students graduate each year in North Carolina. This is out of more than 900,000 immigrant residents in the state, with undocumented immigrants accounting for almost one-third of the total immigrant residents. Immigrants account for 8.6% percent of the total population in North Carolina.
UNC Chapel-Hill did not respond to the Carolina Journal’s request for comment by the time of this publication.