As teachers and students at the leading public university in the United States, we know that learning rests on exchange across languages, geographies, and traditions. Immigration is a positive good for higher education. International faculty, staff, and students widen the educational mission of universities in the United States by broadening classroom learning, by enriching the arts and humanities, by fueling laboratory work, and by expanding our clinical practice.
Recent events in Minneapolis have highlighted the violence with which the Trump administration is pursuing its campaign against immigrants and those who advocate for them. Here in Washtenaw County, parents dropping their children off at school have to worry that immigration authorities will apprehend them at bus stops or outside the school’s doors. With arrests and even killings of legal immigrants and citizens, the U-M community must now live in a state of fear, anxiety, and insecurity.
The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs stands in solidarity with immigrants who work, study, and teach at the University of Michigan and for all those who have become targets of the federal government. We call the U-M administration’s attention to Motion Four of the University Senate meeting of April 2025. This resolution asked the University to adopt a policy of non-compliance with federal authorities; it asked that the University would not share information with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement; it asked for a programme of legal support for international staff, faculty and students; and it asked the University to ensure that students forced to leave the country can complete their degrees in a timely manner.
We have not had a formal reply to this resolution, which passed by a U-M faculty vote of 2,744 to 203. We now ask this University’s leadership to rise to the moment and to make every effort to support and protect the staff, faculty and students on whom our educational and research mission relies.
Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs
Approved by SACUA on February 2, 2026