An international graduate student of the UCLA was detained on the American-Mexican border and is owned by customs and border protection, the school confirmed on Thursday evening.
The student, whose name was not published, was arrested on Wednesday evening, according to members of the faculty and students who quickly organized a campus rally in her support Thursday evening.
“The UCLA has learned that an international graduate student had been detained by customs and the protection of the United States’s borders while he was trying to enter the United States of Mexico,” said Mary Osako, UCLA strategic communication vice-chancellor, in a press release.
“The student remains in the cbp care and we are working actively to learn more information. Our international students are an essential element of our bruin community, and we remain fully determined to support their ability to learn and prosper at the UCLA. ”
The Ministry of Internal Security, which oversees the CBP, could not be immediately joined to comment.
Few details have been published on the student, including his name and nationality. The faculty and an immigration lawyer who was trying to contact the student, said late Thursday that they had not yet told him. They added that the student had been detained on the border of San Ysidro south of San Diego and was able to reach UCLA contact before it was arrested.
We do not know why the student was in Mexico or what led to his detention.
Since the end of March, the Trump administration suddenly canceled more than 1,000 visas for foreign students in the United States, including more than 120 in California and around 20 at the UCLA. On April 4, UC San Diego said that an international student was also detained on the American-Mexican border when he was trying to cross. In a message on the campus at the time, the Chancellor of the UC San Diego Pradeep Khosla said that the student had been “detained on the border, denied entry and expelled in their country of origin”.
At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Security, which maintains a database which affirms the registration of foreign students in universities, ended the status of the same students. College staff learned the actions after verifying the database.
Visas grant an entry to international students in the United States, while their status in the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) database is part of what gives them legal permission to stay in the United States for studies or limited training during employment after obtaining the diploma.
The administration did not give detailed reasons for the cancellations of visa or status of registration of students.
Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department revoked visas held by visitors who acted against national interests, including some who protested the War of Israel in Gaza and those who faced unrelated criminal charges.
The lawyers for several students said they had been informed that the cancellations of Visa and Sevis were due to criminal records, but their lawyers said that the alleged violations of certain students included minimum offenses such as speed tickets. Immigration experts said such actions did not respect the level at which visas or students’ status would be lost in previous administrations, including during President Trump’s first mandate.
More aggressive measures of the application of immigration took place last month, mainly in the Ivy League and Elite campuses in the Northeast, including Columbia University, where foreign students who supported Pro-Palestinian demonstrations were arrested for expulsion. Some of these students were of Arab, Muslim or South Asian origin. In legal statements and depots, the Trump administration said that students were a supporter of Hamas, a terrorist group designated by the United States and a threat to American foreign policy targets.
In the case of the detained UCLA student, it is not known if it was involved in pro-Palestinian activism or if his visa had been canceled.
About 150 members of the community joined UCLA on Thursday in front of Murphy Hall, which houses the Chancellor’s office. They kept panels while reading “Hands off our Student” as well as pro-Palestinian posters. “No ice, no KKK, no fascists in the United States,” sang the students.
“We have been warning the university for weeks that students would be detained,” said Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science who spoke during the rally. “We would like the UCLA to defend their students.”
Ariela Gross, professor of UCLA law and history, also addressed the crowd. “We have a moral obligation … The UC has a moral obligation” to defend the students, she said.
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