American University’s student government recently passed a referendum calling on the university to designate itself a sanctuary campus and limit its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Student protests broke out at the University of North Carolina Asheville, the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere to push those campuses to embrace sanctuary status. A petition with the same demand from Colorado State University’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America garnered more than 3,000 signatures.
“It is of the utmost importance that students, staff, and community members see CSU committing to protect the most threatened students in this community,” read the student petition to Colorado State administrators.
The petitions and protests have also been fueled by student frustrations with universities’ compliance with other federal immigration actions. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other groups sued Columbia University on behalf of students after federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a green card–holding recent Columbia graduate, at his university-owned apartment because of his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. Shortly afterwards, Department of Homeland Security agents searched two Columbia dorms, though no arrests were made. The CAIR lawsuit, which also targets the House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce, led to an injunction that stopped the university from sharing more student records with lawmakers.
“While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University,” Khalil said in a statement from an ICE detention center in Louisiana. “Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats.”
The renewed push for sanctuary campuses harks back to President Donald Trump’s first term, when students at dozens of campuses petitioned their colleges to follow the lead of sanctuary cities and create boundaries for their cooperation with federal immigration officials. At the time, a handful of higher ed institutions agreed to designate themselves sanctuary campuses and protect undocumented students to the fullest extent the law allows. Many more made public declarations of support for undocumented students without actually embracing the title.
This time around, while some college and university leaders have promised they’ll support students in every way legally possible, few are eager to comment publicly on Trump’s immigration actions or use the sanctuary title, for fear of overpromising the protections they can offer or attracting unwanted attention to their campuses, potentially putting students or federal funds at risk.
The Trump administration has already gone after sanctuary cities, with Chicago among the first targeted for immigration raids. One of Trump’s early executive orders asserted that “sanctuary jurisdictions” shouldn’t receive federal funding. The Trump administration also sued the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois and New York State over their immigration policies last month. And recently, Republican lawmakers lambasted the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City for their sanctuary statuses at a contentious hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Some college leaders are clearly worried that using the term “sanctuary” could make them a target as well. Even the few colleges and universities that previously designated themselves sanctuary campuses seem hesitant to use, or discuss, the term. Inside Higher Ed reached out to eight higher ed institutions that have called themselves sanctuary campuses in the past. Three institutions declined interviews, and four didn’t respond to email requests for comment.
A spokesperson for a community college in the Southwest confirmed in an email that the institution “remains committed to serving and supporting all students” but no longer actively uses the term “sanctuary.”
“Because our top priority is student safety, we prefer not to comment further,” the spokesperson wrote.
‘Meaningful,’ ‘Risky’ or Both?
Current debates over the term “sanctuary” likely reflect some of the ways this political moment differs from Trump’s first term.
Notably, fears that federal immigration officials could venture onto campuses became a reality after Khalil’s recent arrest, heightening the risks of taking a public stand. Other federal immigration actions affecting students and scholars followed, including the arrest of Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University.
A professor at an institution that previously declared itself a sanctuary campus emphasized that Khalil’s case made those working with undocumented students “even more alarmed.” During Trump’s first term, campuses ultimately weren’t a target of federal immigration actions, but the events of the past month at Columbia show that may no longer be true, said the professor, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on condition of anonymity.
Another key difference between Trump’s first and second terms is that most of today’s undocumented students can’t participate in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects those brought to the U.S. as children before 2007 from deportation and allows them to work legally. That means many undocumented students are arguably more vulnerable than they were during Trump’s first term, the professor said. At the same time, campuses have far more infrastructure, resources and legal training to support undocumented students than in the past, they added.
The professor believes it’s still worthwhile for colleges to call themselves sanctuary campuses—or at least offer undocumented students some kind of public support—because it means a lot to affected students and the faculty and staff supporting them. It helps them feel “braver.”
“I think it’s both meaningful and risky,” they said. “In fact, I think it might be more meaningful now because it’s so risky.” But “I don’t necessarily think that using the word ‘sanctuary’ is the key. I think the key is saying something.”
College leaders likely believe “not speaking out is going to give them a layer of safety, because we’re not waving a flag, like, ‘Look over here,’” the professor added. “I get that, but I’m just not sure that it’s right.” They noted that even though Columbia cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters, the Trump administration has shown no signs of letting up on the institution, vowing to strip it of hundreds of millions of federal dollars.
Even some college leaders who have long supported undocumented students have always had issues with the sanctuary designation, said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Her organization doesn’t encourage the term because she worries it’s amorphous and sends a confusing message to undocumented students.
To her, the label evokes the idea of “civil disobedience,” reminiscent of the way churches housed and shielded Central American refugees in the 1980s sanctuary movement. But campuses are still responsible for “complying with the law,” she said. If students interpret the term “sanctuary” to mean otherwise, she fears they might misunderstand what protections they do and don’t have.
“It’s actually not communicating clearly and transparently what the campus is going to do,” she said.
Feldblum believes students’ outrage toward Columbia over its handling of federal immigration actions reflects how easy it is to misunderstand campuses’ legal options. From her perspective, Columbia followed best practices by developing policies delineating private and public space on campus—where ICE can and cannot enter without a judicial warrant—and making sure immigration officials had the correct warrants when they came knocking. Feldblum argued a sanctuary campus would have done the same.
She emphasized that just because campus leaders take extra care with their language doesn’t mean they’re doing any less to support undocumented students. She said many campuses are furiously updating their protocols on how to handle ICE officials on campus and ramping up services and supports for undocumented students without a sanctuary label.
“The commitment to support students, to use the tools in our toolbox to make sure that we’re protecting students’ right to free speech, that we’re supporting our campuses so they are places for safe and supportive learning is very much at top of mind for campus leaders,” Feldblum said.
Maryam Ahranjani, professor of law at the University of New Mexico, expressed similar discomfort with the term “sanctuary”; she argued it “may not have the same meaning to everyone” and as a result can be “counterproductive.”
“There may be people who would actually support the goals of people in favor of a designation, but maybe they just don’t like the term,” Ahranjani said.
Instead of making a big national push for sanctuary, advocates of undocumented student should “think about how to get the support of highest-level leaders, presidents, provosts” on a set of specific goals informed by the needs and concerns of undocumented students’ on individual campuses, she added.
Colleges need plans in place for how they’d respond to ICE raids, but undocumented students could also be facing other problems that go unnoticed, like bullying or “how the current climate affects [their] ability to learn,” she said. “I think it’s important to talk to them about what their exact individual needs are.” But some advocates for sanctuary campuses insist the designation is needed now more than ever, with both undocumented populations and campus free speech squarely in the administration’s crosshairs.
Michelle Ming, political director at United We Dream, an immigrant youth advocacy organization, empathizes with campus leaders who fear for their federal funding but argues that colleges that don’t embrace sanctuary campus status deny undocumented students a sense of security, thus depriving them of the full benefits of the college experience.
“What is the point of having a school if it’s not going to be safe?” she said. To Ming, sanctuary means students “feel safe to go to class. They feel safe to go and do what they came to do—and paid to do—which is learn, further their education, discover what the next step in life is and form communities that really resonate with who they are and who they want to be. And that includes exercising free speech.”
