In the first two years of the Trump presidency, no federal agency has been targeted by the left more than ICE. Just last week, 2020 hopeful Kamala Harris tried to draw a comparison between ICE and the KKK.
Campus progressives have also singled out ICE for unfair criticism. In February, students at Rutgers successfully campaigned to have the agency removed from a government jobs fair.
Now the law school at Seattle University has severed ties with ICE.
Asia Fields reports at the Seattle Times:
Seattle University Law School suspends externship with ICEAfter pressure from students, Seattle University School of Law administrators suspended its externship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.An externship provides students with legal work experience for school credit. Externs for ICE work in its legal office, which represents the government in deportation proceedings and provides legal advice and training.Alex Romero, a third-year law student who wants to be an immigration lawyer, noticed representatives from ICE at a table at a law-school externship fair in late September. Romero met with administrators and told them this could be frightening for undocumented students and went against the school’s mission.
In other words, students at this school will no longer be able to take advantage of this valuable educational experience so that social justice warriors can feel better about themselves.
A legal adviser for ICE named Tracy Short offered a statement:
“It’s disheartening that an institution dedicated to teaching the laws of this country and whose core values include justice and diversity would prevent its students from gaining valuable professional experience in the fields of immigration and customs law,” Short said, also pointing out that the university receives some federal funding.
Kenneth Nelson of Campus Reform has a statement from the law school’s dean:
Annette Clark, the school’s Dean of Law, claimed in an email that Seattle University is a signatory of a policy “which condemns administration policies that have led to the unjust and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and migrant families, practices that continue today and that directly affect members of our community,” according to The Spectator.
The school newspaper, The Spectator, has more on the student who led this effort:
Law School Suspends Controversial ICE ExternshipIn September, many Seattle University law students attended an externship fair where organizations advertised the externships they offer to Seattle U students in exchange for course credit. Among the hundreds of programs that Seattle U offers was one that caught the attention of law student Alex Romero: a table with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representatives advertising their own program.Given that ICE is currently under fire for its treatment of undocumented immigrants, Romero believed that this externship ran contrary to Seattle U’s mission. He brought these concerns to the externship program office’s attention in hopes to end this partnership, and after pressure from students and community members, law school Dean Annette Clark announced in an email on Oct. 31 that the school would suspend this partnership…At first, according to Romero, the law school was hesitant to suspend the program, and it wasn’t until more community members applied pressure that they took action.“I prepared arguments on why this is inappropriate at our school and contrary to our mission and a list of other arguments,” Romero said. “The law school weighed the argument [that] the school has an ample responsibility to provide different options for different students and weighed it heavier than my arguments.”Romero said he then made a petition and contacted community members for support. With that pressure, he said, the university suspended the program.
Take note of this particular line from the report:
“Students raised concerns after ICE presence at our annual Externship Fair caused them to feel unsafe,” Jill Dutton, director of the externship program, said in an email statement.
This absurd claim has been used by campus progressives repeatedly in recent years. Campus police, regular police, conservative student groups and invited speakers have all been subjected to the argument that their mere presence makes some students feel unsafe.
In the case of ICE at Seattle University, it was a precursor to the virtue-signaling moral argument which finally succeeded.
In the months before the 2018 midterms, the abolishment of ICE was a common talking point among Democrats, many of whom have become indistinguishable from campus social justice warriors.
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