A crowd of over 30 people rallied at West Village Quad to advocate for greater protections and resources for international students in the event that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers were to enter campus.

The April 2 rally was hosted by Northeastern’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, or YDSA, and is the second rally they have held this school year. 

“We are currently organizing to improve the lives of our international community, not only the international students but the international workers and everyone affected by ICE,” said Lokesh, chair of Northeastern YDSA and cochair of Boston YDSA and a third-year computer science and neuroscience combined major, who only provided their first name due to privacy concerns.

In December, YDSA drew more than 50 people to Centennial Common and called on the university to formally bar ICE from campus without a judicial warrant. With Northeastern yet to publicly respond to these demands, YDSA organized again amid a growing national crackdown on international students.

The university declined to comment. 

The December rally came amid a surge in immigration enforcement actions targeting immigrants across the country. Since January 2025, the State Department has revoked more than 100,000 visas nationwide, including those of thousands of international students, with a rise in revocations up 150% from the previous year. 

On March 25, 2025, plainclothed ICE agents detained Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student and Fulbright Scholar at Tufts University, outside of her Somerville apartment.  

“We are here to advocate for people that can’t advocate for themselves out of fear,” said John Cervantes, a fourth-year history and political science combined major, former chair of Northeastern YDSA and the current head of their political education committee. “If an international student engages in any kind of political manifestation, the Trump administration is going to try to deport them. I mean, we have already seen that here in Boston with the case at Tufts, and so we are here for the people that can’t speak for themselves.”  

The rally also featured student and faculty speakers, many of whom echoed Cervantes’ point about speaking out for international students.

Attendees and speakers voiced concerns over Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun’s administrative choices throughout the rally.

Since Aoun took over as president, Northeastern’s administration has become “very profit focused,” said Leo Ansari, a second-year student political science major and YDSA membership development coordinator, at the rally and during an interview with The Huntington News. “Aoun is a business man. … He recognizes the value of what Northeastern international students provide to him; your international students are your funding and you’re refusing to protect them.”

In a speech, Fresno, a first-year sociology and environmental studies combined major who provided only his first name due to privacy concerns, addressed that Northeastern has the second-largest international student body in the United States. 

“Seventeen percent of our undergrad students and 60% of our graduate students are international students. … They make our university work. They make our university run,” Fresno said.

Multiple speakers also mentioned Northeastern’s connection to defense contractors, something previously rallied against by other student groups.

In an interview, Cervantes echoed these concerns and questioned whether Northeastern prioritizes student safety over its “contracts with Halliburton and Raytheon and all these other military defense contractors.”

While the rally took place on West Village Quad, Gabriel Besecker, a third-year economics and psychology combined major and treasurer of Northeastern YDSA, said the original plan was to march around campus to maximize the rally’s exposure, an idea the university shut down.

“We filled out the permit [and] put all the information about what the rally was going to look like and when [Northeastern] got back to us they said ‘oh we approve it except the part about the march,’” Besecker said.  

Northeastern’s demonstration policy, listed under Policy 617 on the university’s website, requires that any student wishing to hold a demonstration on campus submit an application to the Center for Student Involvement and receive written approval in advance. 

Besecker said that Northeastern denied the full request because they feared “it would interrupt university business processes” and that he finds Northeastern’s demonstration policy very vague because it allows Northeastern “to get away with stopping a lot of types of demonstration on campus.”

Besecker added that in light of recent threats to campus and students’ security, including a stabbing outside Marino Recreation Center on March 27, a second stabbing near 291 Huntington Ave. April 1 and reports of gunfire on Gainsborough Street later that same day, “it was very lucky that [YDSA] had this event now especially with what’s happening with NUPD”.

Since the protest, a fatal police shooting occurred on Hemenway Street April 4.

In her address to the crowd, Suzanne Walters, a professor of sociology and director of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern, said that demonstrations are especially relevant amid the Trump administration’s recent mass deportation initiative. 

“Over half a million people [were] already deported under Trump’s second term,” Walters said. “They are being held in conditions that are inhumane and in violation of both human decency and international and national law.”