This spring, students in the dining halls might notice posters featuring black and white photographs of Tufts students and professors alongside the more familiar advertisements for a cappella auditions and film screenings. The subjects gaze straight at the camera, with the words "This Is Immigration" spanning the top of the page.
This pro-immigration poster project is one example of an increasing level of on-campus activism on the issue of immigration rights.
The discussion has also spread to the classroom through courses like last semester's "Anthropology 183: Urban Borderlands," which focused on local immigrant populations.
Another example is the new group Students at Tufts Acting for Immigration Rights (STAIR). Recognized last year by the TCU Senate, STAIR works to raise awareness on immigration issues. The Tufts Democrats have also taken up the issue and, with STAIR, are co-sponsoring a symposium on immigration on March 31.
According to junior Courtney Houston-Carter, who is helping to lead the immigration symposium as a part of his Tisch Scholars project, this heightened interest in immigration issues on campus reflects an ever-growing national dialogue on the issue. Houston-Carter said the dialogue is rooted in several immigration bills Congress has faced over the past two years.
"[The issue of immigration] attracted a lot of attention with the Kennedy-McCain bill last year," he said, referring to a 2005 bill that would have allowed undocumented workers living in the United States to petition to become permanent residents. Two months later, the Kyl-Cornyn bill presented a guest-worker program that would allow immigrants to work for two-year increments before being required to leave the country for one year.
At the end of 2005, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437) passed in the House of Representatives but not the Senate. The bill called for extensive fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. Among other strict provisions, the act would have allowed the federal government to detain undocumented workers arrested by local authorities.
These bills led to a series of 2006 protests and sparked national debate over issues pertaining to undocumented workers. According to STAIR founding member Unaza Khan, it was these events that inspired him to create the organization with a small group of other students.
"We used to meet up in Dewick and talk about what we wanted, what people were saying," said Khan, who also will be helping to lead the March symposium. Before formalizing the organization at the end of the 2005-2006 school year, Khan and the other STAIR founders agreed that building a U.S.-Mexico border fence was "ridiculous" and a "waste of tax money."
This year, STAIR has been working to teach students and community members that undocumented workers are real people. Khan said that vocabulary in immigration discussion often serves to obscure that side of the issue.
"When H.R. 4437 was brought up in the House, 'illegal immigrants' became this big new term," Khan said. "No one was really discussing the human factor behind the word 'illegal.' To be undocumented does not make a human being illegal."
With that sentiment in mind, Khan and current STAIR leader and junior Daniel Becker teamed up with Houston-Carter to organize the March symposium, which they hope will bring the immigration dialogue to an even greater audience.
"We think that immigration is going to be a defining issue in American politics for our generation," said Houston-Carter, who has studied the issue while pursuing a major in political science. Houston-Carter, Khan, and Becker are striving to create a conference with a variety of speakers who will address immigration politics and economics on local and national levels. The conference will also include a role-playing session to help the audience understand the desperate situations of many undocumented workers.
Houston-Carter hopes that the symposium will attract a politically diverse audience.
"It's not so much about where you stand," Houston-Carter said, "but it's talking about the issue." He is currently working with the Tufts Democrats to organize the political portion of the conference.
Both Houston-Carter and Khan are optimistic about the implications of immigration activism for future awareness and policy.
"You raise your own awareness, and then that of others," Khan said.
Houston-Carter hopes to see the awareness of immigration issues among college students make a mark on both the Congress and the White House.
"I think we can put pressure on politicians to let them know this is something we care about," he said. "Our students are going to be future leaders, and immigration is very much linked to what goes on in the world."
