Though Penn President Amy Gutmann did not attend the meeting, students who were in attendance feel that they had the chance to voice their concerns to the administration. | DP File Photo
Five undocumented students met with administrators for two hours on Wednesday night to discuss the University’s commitment to undocumented students. Penn President Amy Gutmann, to whom the students had initially written asking for a meeting, was not present.
“We were not upset,” said College senior Silvia Huerta, a member of Undocumented at Penn who attended yesterday’s meeting. “The people who were there are people who can make the changes we are looking for. They showed the support that we believe the president equally shares.”
The meeting, which lasted from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., comes two weeks after undocumented students wrote to Gutmann asking for a meeting and a week after Gutmann announced Penn’s status as a sanctuary campus. Though other universities had proclaimed their “sanctuary” status before, Gutmann’s proclamation on Nov. 30 had a ripple effect in Washington, D.C., where on Wednesday Republican lawmakers called for sanctuary campuses to lose all federal funding.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who planned to introduce the bill on Wednesday, cited Penn and Gutmann specifically when indicting universities that declare a sanctuary status for undocumented students.
“The American people have spoken loudly in this past election that they want federal immigration law enforced,” Harris said. “Shame on those universities who take federal money and then promote lawlessness.”
Administrators at the meeting included members of Gutmann’s staff, such as Vice President for Institutional Affairs Joann Mitchell, as well as Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum, Vice Provost for Education Beth Winkelstein and Associate Vice President for Student Services Michelle Brown-Nevers.
During Wednesday’s discussion, students talked over a list of policy recommendations they had previously sent to Gutmann and raised other concerns such as the possibility of undocumented students facing homelessness if border control is tightened or if their undocumented family members are deported. While students raised these concerns “passionately,” they did not push for specific policies during this meeting, Huerta said.
“We didn’t come in there and say, ‘We want this and we won’t take anything else,’ because we understand and respect their experiences as administrators,” she said. Huerta added that students and administrators at the table disagreed on strategies but shared the same end goal.
College freshman Erik Vargas, another attendee, said it served primarily to build a relationship with administrators.
“It was good for us to show our faces to them. And good for us to see their faces, so that it does not feel like we are just dealing with some bureaucratic, administrative figure,” he said.
Over the winter holiday, undocumented students will prepare for another meeting with administrators in the spring semester by looking at policies being formulated at other universities. Another focus for next semester is to engage more allies and build solidarity with other movements on campus.
“We hope we can be an example of how students can create change within this community,” Huerta said. “Hopefully this one small victory [of securing a meeting with administrators] can be an inspiration to not just our group but lots of other groups who are struggling.”
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