By Jillian Wrigley, news staff
More than 25 Northeastern dining hall workers and 50 students marched to the Alumni Center on Columbus Avenue Thursday afternoon to deliver a letter to President Joseph E. Aoun demanding sanctuary campus protections for all workers.
If Northeastern became a sanctuary campus, the university would promise to protect undocumented immigrants in its community—including students and workers—from deportations and raids by federal immigration authorities. The student coalition Huskies Organizing with Labor (HOWL) organized the demonstration.
The students and dining hall employees began marching down Columbus Avenue at 2:30 p.m. They were stopped at the doors of the Alumni Center by two Northeastern University Police Department officers, who allowed the protesters to gather outside but said they could not enter the building because it would pose a fire hazard.
“Obviously, they don’t want to listen to the dining hall staff and the students that are standing with them,” said Camila Simons, a third-year mechanical engineering major and president of the Latin American Student Organization.
Protesters surrounded the doors and chanted phrases in Spanish such as, “Sí, se puede” (Yes we can) and “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (The people united will never be defeated).
In response to the HOWL demonstration, Northeastern spokesperson Matthew McDonald said in an email to The News on Friday that the university tracks all governmental actions that could affect its community members.
“As a global university, Northeastern has a robust infrastructure of resources available to assist its students and employees as appropriate based on their individual needs,” McDonald said. “As we always do, we will monitor any changes in government policy that could impact our campuses and the educational experiences of our students.”
In addition to requesting sanctuary campus status, HOWL’s letter asked Aoun to take stances on promises President-elect Donald J. Trump made during his campaign. HOWL members want Aoun to denounce the creation of a registry for Muslim immigrants in the United States; support the rights of workers to collectively bargain for a livable income; grant excused absences to employees who peacefully protest on Trump’s Inauguration Day; and support the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program.
DACA allows federal officials to defer deportations for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were younger than 16 years old, while DAPA empowers federal immigration authorities to defer deportations for the parents of American children or lawful permanent residents.
On Nov. 22, Aoun signed a letter by college and university presidents calling on the country’s leaders to uphold and expand DACA. So far, more than 500 college presidents have signed the letter.
Ben Simonds-Malamud, a sophomore English major and a lead organizer for the HOWL demonstration, said Aoun’s support with the DACA letter only grazed the surface of what needs to be done to protect Northeastern workers.
“I think it’s good that President Aoun signed that pledge, but he needs to go further and agree to the workers’ demands,” Simonds-Malamud said. “The key things President Aoun hasn’t yet agreed to are denying [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] access without a warrant and excusing absences in the event that workers strike on Jan. 20.”
Approximately 30 minutes into the demonstration, Becky Lindley, the associate director at the Center for Student Involvement, met the crowd of protesters outside and took the letter. After the demonstration, Simonds-Malamud said Lindley sent an email to the HOWL coalition saying that the letter would be passed along to administration leadership, but she did not explicitly say in the email or at the demonstration that she would give the letter to Aoun.
Members of HOWL voiced disappointment at the administration’s response to their demands.
“They did send someone and hopefully that will actually go through, but I’m hesitant to know exactly what will happen with that,” Simons said. “I’m hopeful we will get a positive response from them, but a lot of times things slip through the cracks in the bureaucracy so there will have to be more action to come.”
Jose Taibot, who has worked in the Stetson East dining hall for 15 years, addressed the crowd of students and workers after the demonstration.
“This is normal, that the doors just shut in our face,” Taibot said. “But we want to leave a message. What’s our message? That we are not going to stop. That we are going to fight for exactly what we deserve.”
Photo by Jillian Wrigley
