{"id":8346,"date":"2026-08-04T11:41:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=8346"},"modified":"2026-08-04T11:42:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:42:01","slug":"recent-ice-raids-on-the-um-campus-calls-students-to-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=8346","title":{"rendered":"Recent ICE raids on the UM campus calls students to action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1st Place, Informative Feature<\/strong>
2025-26, Division 1, News Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Salem Dinh<\/strong>
The Emery
Ann Arbor Huron HS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While school at the University of Michigan may stand as many students\u2019 first time away from home, there is still the inevitable call from parents. Every week, mundane conversations from \u201chow are you\u201d to \u201chow are classes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For international students, though, this isn\u2019t just time away from home; it\u2019s oceans away. And the mundane conversations aren\u2019t about campus life; it\u2019s filled with concerns about recent American Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gotten a sit down from my parents being like, if you\u2019re going to protest, wear a mask and please don\u2019t make it known that it\u2019s you,\u201d said Jane Doe, a current Korean international student at UM. \u201cSituations like that, if something happens to me and I get deported, my family lives in Korea, but it affects my education. So, it affects my family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doe, like many international students on campus, has been personally feeling the impacts of the rise in recent ICE activity. After President Trump\u2019s reinstatement into office earlier this year, there has been a clearly stated mission for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increase in activity has reached many colleges and universities across America alike, including the University of Michigan, which has recently fired and detailed three3 different Chinese international scholars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe strongly condemn any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university\u2019s critical public mission,\u201d the UM Public Affairs website<\/a> said. \u201cWe have and will continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement in its ongoing investigation and prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 12,547 international students, scholars, and faculty at UM according to the 2025 UM International Center statistical report<\/a>, these recent statements and actions have caused concerns amongst the UM student and faculty community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny time I come across another international student the only thing to talk about is how do we avoid and stay out of trouble,\u201d Doe said. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a sense of danger and anxiety with international students, but also with non-international students as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the center of this uneasiness amongst campus is a pattern of vagueness and the unknown for UM administration. For international and domestic students alike, there is an ambiguity that creates anxiety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the beginning of this year, the university released [like] very useless statements about how they would react to the ICE detainments happening on campus,\u201d said UM student Amatullah Hakim, who currently serves as the United Asian American Organizations (UAAO) co-director on campus. \u201cEssentially, they provided no protective measures to international students in order to protect them from the actions of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hakim, while not an international student, has still continued to feel the shift in campus with recent increases in ICE activity through her work with the UAAO. The organization is a coalition group on campus to represent other ethnic and cultural Asian groups on campus. They work together to further help change social and political issues impacting the Asian American diaspora on campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough Ann Arbor seems like a very liberal place, the people that are in charge still clearly don\u2019t have the well-being of students in mind,\u201d Hakim said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These actions taken by the University of Michigan may seem new and in response to current changes in the American political climate, but many students and faculty have noticed patterns of this in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think sometimes people use the Trump administration as an excuse for the actions of our university administration, whereas it\u2019s very clear that the regents have always and will continue to serve their own interests regardless of who it is in the administration,\u201d Hakim said. \u201cUniversities have the power to stand up to the face of governments and allocate the funding however they want to. It\u2019s more so a pattern of continued action and continued repression that extends far beyond the Trump administration.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For international students, this issue comes mainly in the resources given towards them from the administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I received any resources from them [UM administration],\u201d said an anonymous international Chinese foreign exchange UM alumnus. \u201cI received direct support from the professors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This anonymous source immigrated from China in 2019 after being admitted into UM\u2019s secondary teaching program for a master\u2019s degree. While they didn\u2019t study as an undergraduate student, anonymous still raised hopes for changes in future UM resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was 27 when I was in a program, but I think it might be really hard for young adults when they are to come to a new country without any support,\u201d Anonymous said. \u201cI think the university needs to give them some support in how to address yourself in a new country, like some life support, financial support, and mental health support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One large concern for international students isn\u2019t necessarily school itself, but what happens after. With the complications of work Visas and different biases by employers, there is an unspoken need for these resources from the UM administration.

\u201cI know that it\u2019s really hard for international students looking for a job in this environment,\u201d Anonymous said. \u201cVisa stuff has been really tough this year, so I think those are the things that students really need. I feel many international students want to get a job here, and they deserve it because they are really good students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many student organizations have recognized this imminent need for change and have been advocating for the university to take action. Some, like UAAO, have gone as far as to make official public statements condemning the university in light of the recent detainment of different Chinese scholars.

\u201cThe University has not only failed to protect its own international graduate students,\u201d The official UAAO<\/a> statement said. \u201cBut also jeopardized these scholars\u2019 visa statuses through unjustly terminating Xu Bai, Fengfan Zhang, and Zhiyong Zhang on October 8th and enabling ICE to detain them on October 16th.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with student efforts, there is still pushback from university administration. Hakim described the limits in event venues on campus, with approval needed and administrative concerns on what these events can entail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey love to send like a quick little email, being like you went against this policy, so here is the lawsuit,\u201d Hakim said. \u201cWhen it comes to these things, there\u2019s honestly like little to no communication as far as I\u2019ve noticed. I think it says a lot about what their main objective is. Not to communicate and see what our objective is, but it\u2019s more so just to silence and repress these kinds of events as fast as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the risks and pushbacks for international and domestic students, there is still a call for different students to speak up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you get deported, all the work that you\u2019ve been doing on these political issues could\u2019ve been for nothing, but if you take that and use it wisely,\u201d Doe said. \u201cThen you could be someone who\u2019s going to change the future.\u201dView Story CommentsLike This Story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1st Place, Informative Feature2025-26, Division 1, News Writing By Salem DinhThe EmeryAnn Arbor Huron HS While school at the University of Michigan may stand as many students\u2019 first time away from home, there is still the inevitable call from parents. Every week, mundane conversations from \u201chow are you\u201d to \u201chow are classes.\u201d For international students, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[60,4],"tags":[224,20],"class_list":["post-8346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-informativefeature","category-nw","tag-2025-26","tag-division1","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Mikayla Mazza","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=14"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-2aC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8347,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions\/8347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}