We are international graduate students at UC Santa Cruz on strike for a cost of living adjustment.
A February 7 email from UCSC’s International Student and Scholar Services stated that “ actions that result in student discipline or arrest may have immigration consequences, both on our current status and on possible future immigration applications you may make in the United States.” On February 14, EVC Lori Kletzer and UC President Janet Napolitano made this implicit threat of deportation a reality by threatening to revoke Spring 2020 work appointments for striking graduate students.
We can only assume that the UC administration understands that this is a de facto threat to deport dozens of international graduate students at UCSC. With the termination of our spring employment, we lose tuition remissions, without which we cannot remain enrolled full-time and without which our visas become forfeit. We have no protections and no guarantees, especially those of us from the global South, for whom student visa reapplications can be an uncertain and nightmarish process.
We see these threats as consistent with Janet Napolitano’s history as chief of the Department of Homeland Security, and we do not take them lightly. The UC has imperiled our futures in this country for participating in labor actions for living wages. We have no reason to believe that submitting grades and ending our strike activities will keep any of us safe from retaliation.
Many of us applied to study at UCSC for its tradition of scholar-activism, its social justice mission, and its stated commitment to diversity. Some of us took on financial and emotional risks by deciding to come to the U.S. for work and study in a Trumpian political climate of travel bans and anti-immigrant sentiment. All of us understand that our labor as teaching assistants is an indispensable component of the research and educational vision of this university.
The restrictions we face as visa holders drove us to go on strike in the first place. Under conditions of severe rent burden, many of our fellow graduate workers are forced into additional academic employment or low-wage side jobs. These options are unavailable to international students. We cannot take more than a 50% employment load on campus and are prohibited from seeking off-campus employment. We find it extraordinarily difficult to develop credit histories to support our tenant applications to local landlords.
We are on strike because our situation in Santa Cruz is untenable. For us, the most recent threat is only the formalization of our existing reality. Having recruited us to an unlivable situation, the UC is now making our status in this country impossible.
This statement was released by international students on February 19th, 2020.