Dozens of Temple students and faculty gathered on the ninth floor of Gladfelter Hall Wednesday to seek out local expertise on immigrant rights amid President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders altering policies on citizenship, illegal entry and deportation. Dozens more watched the event on Zoom.
The hour-long teach-in featured University of Pennsylvania historian Hardeep Dhillon, Temple law professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales and history professor Monica Ricketts. The panelists explained the reach of these executive orders, outlined immigrants’ civil rights and placed recent migrant policy changes in a broader historical context.
Dhillon opened her remarks with a line from fellow historian Dylan C. Penningroth.
“‘Activists care about whether people have rights, most other people care about what they can do with those rights,’” Dhillon said, quoting Penningroth.
Since returning to the office last month, Trump has pushed his long-promised crackdown on immigration to the limit. Through a series of executive orders, Trump has attempted to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment; opened houses of worship and learning to deportation raids; and ended asylum protections for thousands of refugees fleeing violence across the globe.
These orders have upended decades or even centuries of U.S. policy, creating chaos for millions of people — citizens and noncitizens alike.
Ramji-Nogales explained the legal scope of Trump’s executive orders, detailing the judiciary’s role in balancing executive power. She also emphasized the role of the Constitution in protection for citizens — and the limits of those safeguards for noncitizens.
“Undocumented migrants do not have as many constitutional rights as you would expect a human being would have, just by virtue of being human,” Ramji-Nogales said.
Students, faculty and the surrounding community have all begun to feel the tension closer to home. On Monday, two undergraduates and a Temple alumnus impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents roamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue, causing fear and confusion before police apprehended them on fraud charges. Further up North Philadelphia, customs officials raided a Juniata Park car wash, detaining several employees suspected of being undocumented.
More than 1,900 international students from 123 different countries attend Temple, according to statistics published online by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Trump’s second term has raised concern among students and faculty about how the university will respond if ICE ever comes to campus. University President John Fry has addressed these concerns in a series of emails.
“Temple’s mission of access, opportunity, engagement and discovery will not change,” Fry wrote in a message to the Temple’s staff and faculty on Feb. 5. “Our mission is why we are here, and it is why the university is distinctive and impactful.”
The most recent email included a memo from the Office of University Counsel providing additional guidance to students and faculty for navigating the potential appearance of deportation forces. The memo urged immediate reporting of ICE sightings, outlined legal barriers to ICE’s presence and reminded students and staff of their disclosure rights.
With Trump’s GOP in full control of Congress and many federal agencies undergoing a right-wing takeover, immigration activists see long-shot court battles as the primary check on Trump’s ambitions. States, localities and organizations — including Pennsylvania’s founding Quaker community — have sued to try and stall the onslaught of orders. Some Democratic-led cities have also reaffirmed their commitment to noncooperation with deportation efforts.
Dhillon emphasized the importance of holding the lens of the past to the present — noting that government hostility toward newcomers is not unprecedented, and that history offers stories of dissidents who changed the country’s views and laws.
She cited figures like Wong Kim Ark, the U.S.-born son of Chinese workers who in 1898 sued for the right to re-enter California after a visit to China, triggering a Supreme Court case extending citizenship rights to the children of immigrants.
“It is imperative that we think through what rights we are discussing, what they actually mean in substance and the way they operate in exclusionary, inclusionary or dispossessive power relations with other humans,” Dhillon said. “This extends to — but truly beyond — immigration.”
Students used the Q&A, which formed the teach-in’s second half, to ask how they could help overcome stricter immigration policies, navigate complicated conversations about the issue in their personal life and offer hope to immigrant communities.
Ramji-Nogales noted that the fight was just beginning. Defenders of immigration, she said, were ready.
“The goal is really shock and awe and this politics of exhaustion — trying to throw so many things at everyone and strike fear into the heart of the community,” Ramji-Nogales said. “The good news is, the immigrants’ rights community, the lawyers, are really organized. We know what’s coming. We have lots of info.”
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