• Slug: News-Know Your Rights, 1030 words.
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By Brandelyn Clark
Cronkite News

TEMPE – The Aliento club at Arizona State University hosted a “Know Your Rights” workshop on the Tempe campus last week. The event aimed to empower students with information about their rights following the changing landscape of U.S. immigration policies.

Tensions on ASU’s Tempe campus escalated in late January. The College Republicans United club held a tabling event in which they encouraged students to report classmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The event was met with a rally of about 1,000 led by the Aliento club, whose mission revolves around advocating for students without legal status.

Emily Sotelo Estrada, co-chair of Aliento at ASU, emphasized how the club is helping students understand their rights and protections.

“All of these students … they have homes. They have families. And it’s important that they know their rights. So the purpose of this presentation was to, for one, educate them, because we at Aliento believe that that’s the most important, most powerful tool that we all have,” Estrada said.

The club was established in 2018 as an extension of Aliento, a youth-led nonprofit based in Arizona, which advocates for students without legal immigration status, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and others.

At the workshop, Aliento at ASU provided crucial information to students about their rights in the face of ICE encounters. Key takeaways included identifying ICE vehicles; understanding when ICE can conduct a search; and keeping a list of essential documents, including immigration papers and lawyer contacts. The workshop also emphasized the importance of knowing what warrants ICE can present and when they are required.

Every student left the workshop with a small paper summarizing highlights from the presentation. They were encouraged by the club to keep the essential information at hand.

Diana Cortes, program chair for Aliento at ASU, highlighted the mental toll that immigration policies and campus tensions have taken on students. She said the club hosted the workshop in direct response to student concerns.

“The fear and everything that’s growing – we’re just here to listen to the people’s concerns and address them. We’re having ‘Know Your Rights’ and all of those workshops in response to what’s being asked from us from our community,” Cortes said.

Many attendees at the event, including Daisy Martinez and Marlene Castillo, shared that they belong to mixed status families, in which members hold different immigration or citizenship statuses.

“It is really important to know my rights because I know that staying educated and informed is definitely one of the best ways to resist these policies going against people like my family and myself,” Castillo said.

Both Martinez and Castillo are directly impacted by the mass deportation policies and promises made by President Donald Trump.

“When you look at the way Latino students are carrying themselves. It’s with a lot more caution. … Meeting new people on campus, you go away from mentioning the fact that you might be Latino or anything like that – staying away from any identifying factors because, unfortunately, as we saw with the tabling event, there are people with malicious intents,” Martinez said.

The ASU campus has seen heightened political activism in response to Trump’s new administration and policies, with opposing student organizations

After the College Republicans United event, the organization has posted ICE tip forms around campus, further fueling concern among students and sparking the demonstration in response. Cronkite News has reached out to the club for comment.

Prior to the rally, Aliento at ASU shared guidelines for the rally on social media, recommending pro-Dreamer signage and emphasizing the importance of a peaceful gathering.“Dreamers” describes people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Aliento at ASU held the workshop several days after the rally.

“There’s more people that love than people that hate, because at College Republicans United, when they came out with their tabling event, there was only six of them, but there was 1,000 of us, and so that’s really the support that we’ve been having,” Estrada said at the workshop.

Despite the support shown at the rally, the College Republicans United event left many students feeling anxious about their safety on campus. For some, the fear that a classmate could report them to ICE was a looming reminder of the uncertainty they face.

“Part of me feels overwhelmed with everything that’s been going on with groups on campus wanting to essentially take education away from students who have a right to it. I have friends who would be affected if their peers reported them to ICE authorities,” Castillo said. “I also feel very empowered because we have organizations like Aliento standing up for our rights.”

ASU released a statement in response to the tabling event, which read in part: “Complaints to law enforcement about fellow students is not in keeping with the principles which underlie our academic community. … But we must also recognize that we live in a country that protects individual free speech, even speech that is hurtful.”

Martinez and Castillo expressed disappointment in ASU’s response. Both students had hoped that the administration would reinforce its charter of inclusivity and support for all students.

“I’m not surprised, but I am a little bit disappointed just because it isn’t the response that we were hoping for. We were hoping for more support. … They definitely haven’t established something to make all students feel safe and welcome,” Castillo said.

Aliento at ASU shared a letter titled “Ensuring the Safety and Belonging of All Students Regardless of Immigration Status,” calling on ASU to take concrete steps to protect students without legal status and ensure that all students feel safe on campus regardless of their immigration status.

The petition has garnered over 6,000 signatures from students, faculty and community members.

“A lot of members in the community have come to us and stated that they’re scared to go to classes. They don’t know how to react to it. It’s kind of like taking it day by day,” Cortes, the Aliento at ASU program chair, said. “As a first-generation student, I’m here legally – I was born here. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared. That could be me at some point.”

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