Released April 5, 2025

ICE Presence Reported and Visas Revoked

At approximately 4:00 PM on Friday, April 4, reports were circulated to the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) Local Executive Board along with many of you of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence on campus. The Santa Clara Rapid Response Network could not confirm any ICE activity at this time.

However, we are learning that four Stanford University students and two recent graduates have had their student visas revoked by federal authorities. Attacks against the international scholar community are not a potentiality, but imminent reality. Students and graduate workers across the country have had their visas revoked, been expelled, and been abducted for the “crimes” of expressing their constitutional rights of free speech, press, and assembly.

We recognize the terror, sorrow, and anger our community may be feeling. No Stanford student, graduate worker, instructor, staff, or community member should be made to fear for their life or livelihood, nor should we have to fear whether or not our coworkers will be abducted unknowingly by ICE.

At their core, these tactics are a shock and awe tactic to try to silence us, aiming to paralyze any momentum into inaction. As graduate student workers and members of the broader labor movement, we must take bold action to oppose the attacks on our constitutional rights to free speech and protest as well as the slashes to our funding that stifle academic freedom and progress.

Sustained, mass mobilization efforts are needed to support those threatened by ICE, and moreover to safeguard our community at-large. This is a moment for graduate student workers to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with our international graduate workers. Unions are our first line of defense to safeguard our rights as workers – join us!

Resources

Below are updated resources from the 3/29/25 SGWU email around ICE and international students:

In solidarity,

SGWU