We condemn the Trump administration’s vicious attacks on free speech, immigrants, student activists, and labor activists.

On the evening of March 8, plainclothes agents with the Department of Homeland Security illegally arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a leading activist at Columbia University, at his home, asserting that they were revoking his Green Card. At the time of this writing, he remains in ICE custody in Louisiana. This is an unprecedented action that signals the dawn of a new wave of attacks on student activists, education in the United States broadly, and the First Amendment. His detention comes in the wake of an announcement by the Trump administration to cut millions of dollars in federal grants to colleges and universities, as well as major cuts to the Department of Education.

Within the week after the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, Grant Miner, president of UAW Local 2710 at Columbia University, was fired and had his degree revoked one day before the start of contract negotiations. This is setting a dangerous precedent for educational labor leaders. Columbia was empowered to target our labor siblings by the federal crackdown on student activists like Mahmoud Khalil. These tactics by the Trump administration signal an escalation in the attacks on students, on our entire education system, and on our labor movement.

United Teachers Los Angeles condemns the Trump Administration’s vicious, anti-immigrant attacks against free speech and the targeting of immigrant students, particularly student activists and protestors. Throughout history, the repression of student movements has always been the harbinger of a broader assault against basic democratic and civil rights for the rest of the nation. Now is the time that we must stand together to protect our students, our right to education, and our constitutional right to Free Speech.