Student groups are pushing for the University of Minnesota to oppose the presence of federal immigration authorities on campus, calling for stronger protections for the University’s immigrant student population.
Students for a Democratic Society, Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and Educators for Justice in Palestine protested outside of Coffman on Sept. 30. This was after International Student and Scholar Services reported United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agents interviewed international residents at the University’s Commonwealth Terrace Cooperative in St. Paul and GrandMarc Seven Corners student housing.
USCIS partnered with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct “Operation Twin Shield” Sept. 19 through Sept. 28, according to a USCIS press release. Their goal, the USCIS wrote in the release, was to target alleged cases of immigration fraud in the Twin Cities.
SDS member Rowan Lange said the University should be a sanctuary campus because of similar happenings around the Twin Cities. They added this would mean the University would limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
This includes limiting the disbursement of student, staff and faculty personal information, according to Lange.
“The University needs to protect their students,” Lange said.
SDS worked with organizations like the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and Educators for Justice in Palestine to canvas surrounding neighborhoods. SDS handed out pamphlets with information on how to interact with immigration agents and what rights individuals have if immigration officers knock on their door.
Young Democratic Socialists of America protested for a sanctuary campus in March of 2025, after ICE officers detained University graduate student, Dogukan Gunaydin.
Luz Stern, a YDSA member, said after over 100 people attended the protest, the University put YDSA on probation. The number of participants broke the University’s protest guidelines, updated in September 2025.
“They just wanted to repress us as much as possible,” Stern said. “But we’ve been pretty much ignoring it and continuing our campaigns for sanctuary campus, for Palestine Solidarity, BDS and for other things like homelessness solidarity.”
Stern said YDSA’s primary objective is making the University a sanctuary campus via education — door knocking, flyering and handing out literature.
Joe Kyle, the leader of the University’s mutual aid collective, said their group spoke with the University’s Chicano and Latino studies department and is meeting with organizations with connections to immigration communities to see where the collective can meet needs.
Kyle said the immigrant population is an exploited group right now, and they should be prioritized by University administration.
“Whatever we can do to meet people’s needs during what I would contend is an ethnic cleansing campaign, I think we have a responsibility to do that,” Kyle said. “Everyone deserves to be free to live wherever they want without fear of being kidnapped.”
Sima Shakhsari, an associate professor of gender, women and sexuality studies at the University and a member of Educators for Justice in Palestine, said he was so worried about ICE on campus that he moved classes online last Spring.
“I cannot teach my students about social justice and not do anything,” Shakhsari said.
Shakhsari said there are connections between events in Gaza and the presence of immigration enforcement on campus. He said Educators for Justice in Palestine wants to support students in their fight for a sanctuary campus, and hopes more people support the cause.
“It shouldn’t be just immigrants fighting for rights or Palestinian students,” Shakhsari said. “We have students here who have lost over 20 members of their families, and it shouldn’t be them fighting for this university to divest.”
Correction: A previous version misstated the group Luz Stern is a part of and misspelled the name of the BDS movement. Stern is a part of YDSA.
Teresa
Oct 27, 2025 at 10:20 am
Nice photograph!
It gives the federal government more people to start investigating for violating 8 U.S.C. § 1324 and rounding up the illegals to deport.
KG
Oct 15, 2025 at 12:08 pm
Sima Shakhsari’s crude attempt to hijack the immigration issue and contort it into “Palestinian rights” and the “Gaza tragedy” is an act of moral corruption and ideological deceit. This is the same Shakhsari who helped drive the disgraceful, anti-Semitic 2023 Gaza statements issued by several CLA academic units. Can anyone grant credibility to this epitome of hypocrisy and distortion?
A person of Persian background, Shakhsari is silent about the ongoing repression in theocratic, ethno-nationalist Iran, led by Supreme Leader Khamenei—a regime that ruthlessly crushes Kurds and other minorities. As an LGBTQ+ individual, Shakhsari also ignores the vicious persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Palestinian territories. This moral evasion hides an uncomfortable truth: Israel is the safest Middle Eastern country for LGBTQ+ individuals and grants asylum to those fleeing the very regimes Shakhsari “champions.”
This self-proclaimed “social justice” educator is equally mute on grim realities within Palestinian society—child marriage, spousal abuse, female genital mutilation, and high rates of congenital birth defects—all documented in UN reports. Yet images of these same children were cynically recycled as “proof” of Gaza starvation until the hoax was exposed.
Meanwhile, Shakhsari teaches the demonstrable falsehood that “settler-colonialism” applies to Israel while omitting key facts: the continuous 3,000-year Jewish presence in Israel, the thousands of Jews living there before modern Zionism, and DNA evidence proving Ashkenazi Jews originated in the Middle East.
Dear student, your tuition and fees fund this propagandist masquerading as a scholar. The U’s integrity is compromised by this purveyor of selective outrage and distortion. It’s time to expect accountability—and restore truth to the classroom.