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The TAA executive board statement on the #studentban is out: we refuse any compromise between supporting international students and the need for online-only instruction to protect us all from COVID-19. https://taa-madison.org/taa-executive-board-statement-on-proposed-ice-order/
This proposed order is designed to pit the Badger community’s concerns around the pandemic against the safety of international students. This does not change the fact @UWMadison is both responsible for ensuring a safe semester during COVID-19 and for fighting the ICE order.
Chancellor @BeckyBlank is falling in with the Trump admin’s tactics by suggesting “smart restart” is a convenient way to protect international students: COVID cases are surging, and ICE has explicitly stated that the order will apply to mid-semester switches to online teaching.
Moreover, reopening the UW–Madison campus at all directly endangers the entire Madison community, which includes international students. If the UW-Madison campus reopens, “there will definitely be more cases and more people will die.” https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/as-covid-19-cases-increase-uw-madison-employee-concerns-about-fall-semester-grow/article_5b348adc-572a-5200-a2e2-e37f9941f108.html
Being forced to study in person to maintain visa status forces international students to accept a higher risk of fatality and chronic illness brought on by COVID-19. Bureaucratic workarounds fail to address the life-threatening harm of reopening. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/8/21251899/coronavirus-long-term-effects-symptoms
The TAA demands that @UWMadison and the UW System maximize the safety of international students by doing (at least) the following:
Refuse to comply with any requests for information about the status of international students.
Provide all int'l students with free, accessible options for meeting the letter of the directive, and offer new options as circumstances change. @UWMadison must offer one-credit courses (with full tuition remission and coded “in-person”) with f2f meetings 100% optional.
Sue the Trump administration to stop the order from going into effect (alongside institutions like Harvard, MIT, the University of California system, and the majority of other Big Ten institutions). https://news.nd.edu/news/notre-dame-to-file-brief-in-support-of-harvard-mit-court-motion/
Define and provide frequent, transparent updates on those efforts "urging the federal government to stay or amend this plan" mentioned in @BeckyBlank's announcement. https://news.wisc.edu/chancellor-blank-statement-on-new-ice-rule/
Declare UW System universities to be sanctuary campuses by forbidding any cooperation between staff and federal immigration enforcement.
We also want to state that emphasizing compliance, following procedure, and merely “interpreting” policy are violently complicit with this state-sanctioned xenophobia. Under the order, information normally shared by @UW_ISS staff will be used to initiate student deportations.
We call on @UW_ISS staff to engage in slowdown workplace actions to buy the UW System time to fight this proposed order, and to seriously consider what other acts of disobedience they can take to protect our international students. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowdown
If @UWMadison and the UW System do not implement these measures before August 1, our membership will plan direct action to push the UW System to do the right thing by protecting our international friends, family, and colleagues.
We will ready ourselves to take legal action; withhold labor, tuition, and fees; and prepare to physically and financially intervene to protect all those threatened with deportation by ICE. We challenge you to organize with us.
