ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will be hosting a job fair Thursday — there’ll be tables set up during lunch where students can meet with prospective employers, and then an evening reception. But one entity that’ll be recruiting is drawing the ire of some students: ICE.
The law school’s Chicano/Latino Law Students Association put out a statement on social media calling on ASU to revoke ICE’s invitation, saying in part, “For our community, ICE is not just an employer. It represents family separation, detention and fear. Allowing ICE to recruit students in a space that should be reserved for collaboration and learning sends a message that these harms are disconnected from the lived realities of our students.”
Maya Dominguez is a third-year law student at ASU and vice president of external relations for the Chicano/Latino Law Students Association. She came by the studio to talk about this before the news about ICE pulling out. The Show asked what her and her group's concerns were about having that agency as part of the job fair.
Full conversation
MAYA DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, so our main concern is that it's quite exclusionary. So our club as a whole exists to be welcoming and ensure that everyone feels at home at school because we do spend so much time there, and so we should feel safe there. So we believe that inviting ICE to campus, in any entity, whether it's their attorneys, which is who would be recruiting us to ICE agents, whatever capacity, we believe that it's not representative of what ASU law should represent. All students should feel safe on campus.
BRODIE: Do you or do you think that your classmates will feel unsafe with ICE attorneys on campus?
DOMINGUEZ: We do, especially with all the recent events right now. ICE is not just a government agency. It's something that represents fear and harm, especially given the recent events in Minnesota. So we don't want that to be on our campus, and especially not in our building recruiting our students.
BRODIE: For you, is it more of a symbolic thing? Like, given everything going on, you don't want representatives from this agency. Or are you actually concerned that, like, ICE might come in and, I don't know, arrest law students, arrest your classmates because they might be suspected of being here illegally?
DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of both. We don't want them in any capacity on our campus, but then inviting them onto our campus, who knows what they'll interpret that invitation to be? Whether that's just the attorney's aspect of it, or if that's also inviting agents in, if they might suspect someone.
You know, there are students at our school that are mixed status, undocumented, DACA, whatever it might be. And so that's not OK for them to feel excluded from that event because they might not feel comfortable going and speaking to all the other agencies and nonprofits that are there because of this invitation that was sent out.
BRODIE: What have you heard from classmates of yours, both those who are maybe in your club and those who are not?
DOMINGUEZ: There's been kind of an overall distrust and desire not to have ICE on campus for this specific event. I do know that there are multiple organizations that have released statements or that have kind of signed on to our own statement as well in support of what we're asking for to revoke that invitation.
BRODIE: What have you heard from the university about this or from the law school specifically?
DOMINGUEZ: We have not heard any response to it. Hopefully we do hear a response. We haven't heard from either ICE as a whole or the university.
BRODIE: Have you reached out to ICE to ask them questions about them coming here?
DOMINGUEZ: We haven't, but our statement has been reaching, has reached our community as a whole. So it's reached attorneys, alumni, like resuming government agencies because our Instagram account has a bunch of alumni and attorneys in the community. And they have been very active and they've started their own petition, actually based off of our statement, kind of urging ASU to, to revoke that invitation to ICE.
BRODIE: Okay, so we reached out to the law school and we heard back from ASU. I'm not going to read the entire statement to you, but basically the gist of it was ASU does not pick and choose which agencies come. And in fact, the spokesperson said that legally the university can't preclude an agency from coming to a job fair. I'm curious. I know you're just hearing this now, but I'm curious what you make of that.
DOMINGUEZ: Thinking about that, it does seem interesting. I understand the kind of, you can't discriminate against certain agencies. I do think it comes down to a matter of the school standing with its students and protecting its students. Obviously, I don't know the exact logistics behind that, but I think that as a school, they should be protecting their students first and foremost.
Whether that means revoking the invitation, whether that means putting certain limitations on the invitation, saying, you know, it can only be the lawyer aspect of ICE that is here to recruit and that's it. Just because having them there as a whole is not disturbing to many of the students, to much of the student body. And so I think that the school should be standing by its students first and foremost.
BRODIE: So given that ICE will be at this event, is it changing how you are thinking about attending or how you are just in general thinking about this event? I mean, you're going to be going out into the world of work not that long from now.
DOMINGUEZ: Yeah. So I know that there are a couple people who are like, I don't even want to go to the event anymore. I do know that there have been, like, concerns that there could be a protest right outside, which would cause interruptions to the networking between students and other agencies as well. And so I think it kind of as a whole is a bad idea in many aspects to have them there just because it could disrupt so many things in so many different aspects.
BRODIE: Are you still planning on going?
DOMINGUEZ: I'm not planning on going. I have been to that event before and as a three-all, I am not currently in the job search. But I'm not sure that I would attend if, regardless, even if I was hoping to go because of ICE’s presence there. One important thing that our statement really kind of hinges on is that in the university charter, so broader than just the law school, it says that the university measures itself not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes.
And so I think that is really telling of what ASU is meant to be and what the school as a whole, ASU law as a part of that, should be abiding by.
BRODIE: All right. Well, Maya, thank you so much for coming in and talking about this. I appreciate it.
DOMINGUEZ: Of course. Thank you for inviting me.
BRODIE: Maya Dominguez is a third year law student at ASU, Sandra Day o' Connor College of Law, and vice president for the Chicano Latino Law Students Association.
As we discussed, we did reach out to ASU about this.
In a statement, a university spokesperson said in part, “ASU does not prohibit municipal, state or federal law enforcement agencies or branches of the U.S. military from participating in employment related opportunities on campus. Federal laws and policies prevent discrimination against such agencies, and some members of the ASU community may choose to pursue legal careers with those agencies,” end quote.
And again, the group said earlier this hour that ICE would no longer be at the job fair.
Full statement from ASU spokesperson
"The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law job fair is one of many opportunities that ASU provides for its law students throughout the year to identify job opportunities and meet potential employers. Employers and students choose to participate in the job fair; ASU does not select those who participate. ASU does not prohibit municipal, state or federal law enforcement agencies or branches of the US military from participating in employment-related opportunities on campus. Federal laws and policies prevent discrimination against such agencies, and some members of the ASU community may choose to pursue legal careers with those agencies."
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