Social media lit up last weekend with claims that ICE was headed to California State Polytechnic University Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). The visit, however, wasn’t to conduct a raid, but a scheduled appearance at a career fair on Sept. 18.
By this past Monday, that career fair was postponed after a public campaign of phone calls and emails, led by students, their families and friends, and community networks, urged the university to reconsider allowing the agency to participate.
We spoke with students and staff at Cal Poly who clarified that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, not ICE, was the only law enforcement group connected to the Department of Homeland Security that was registered to appear at the fair.
The initial announcement to promote the career fair went out on Thursday, August 21, which was also the first day of classes of the fall semester. The university sent out an additional email the next day addressing the presence of CBP at the fair, which you can read below:
“My concern initially, as an undocumented student, was my own safety,” said P, an undergraduate student who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym. “I've been working really hard lately to be able to get on a pathway for citizenship, so it's too much of a risk for me to be in close proximity with stuff like that.”
P considered avoiding the university on the day of the career fair, but also worried that doing so would single them out. Their classmates and friends had also considered skipping classes and activities that day either out of fear or as an act of solidarity with other students.
“I don't receive any financial aid, unfortunately, like any grants or anything,” said P. “So it sucks to spend so much money, spend so much time, so much energy, going to the school, fully supporting it, to feel not safe or to be at risk on campus and have to miss out on and being absent.”
Gin, a graduate student who also asked to be referred via a pseudonym, was angry when he learned about CBP’s presence at the career fair, especially considering that, as Gin pointed out, Cal Poly is a Hispanic-Serving Institution with a diverse population of students of Hispanic, Arab-American, Afro Latino, and Asian-American backgrounds.
Gin emailed the university and asked them to reconsider inviting CBP, but also expressed anger and frustration over their inability to exclude a federal agency, such as CBP, from attending the career fair.
“I thought it was a slap to our face as a student,” explained Gin, “especially since we pay their salaries, tuition is already expensive enough, and we hardly get enough support, and the bare minimum is to protect your students and they can't even do that.”
We asked Tracee Passeggi, director of the university’s career center, if there was a specific law or regulation that prevented Cal Poly from preventing CBP, ICE, or any other federal agency from participating in a career fair or other event on campus.
“We've received guidance from the CSU Chancellor's office about federal immigration enforcement officers attending career affairs,” explained Passeggi. “Some of the language that was taken that the campus cannot bar ICE, Border Patrol, DHS from participating in career activities comes from guidance from the chancellor’s office.”
Passeggi also explained that neither the university nor the career center directly invited CBP. The university uses Handshake to help them organize and promote career fairs and other related events to their students, as well as to companies and organizations who may be interested in attending those events. A number of federal law enforcement agencies, including CBP, are registered as approved employers on Handshake.
“We have 106,000 Handshake-approved active employers,” explained Passeggi, “and being part of that group, about 106 of those employers have the ability to post jobs for Cal Poly Pomona students. They receive any information that we have about career events, and they're also able to view any information that we have around our current events on their employer-facing side of Handshake.”
Employers registered on Handshake can view and register for an event posted and shared on the site, which is how CBP registered for the Sept. 18 career fair at Cal Poly, along with 80+ other firms who had registered by the time the university decided to postpone the fair.
“They're almost like career management systems,” explained Passeggi. “Our campus doesn't specifically use Handshake this way, but students use it to schedule appointments with career center offices. It’s like an all-encompassing career platform.”
Cal Poly typically hosts seven career fairs scheduled during each academic year. Some are general career fairs while others are specific to a career field or college, such as the fair for careers in education produced with the College of Education and Integrated Studies and another fair focused on hospitality management.
Passeggi and her staff at the career center are currently working on the next steps to take to ensure that they are best serving students and prospective employers with future events, including the postponed fairs.
“We really are taking the opportunity to think about the approach, about how we're delivering career programming to campus,” said Passeggi. “We talked a little bit about some of the guidance from the CSU and we're taking the opportunity to ensure that our future programming is serving our employers and our students.”
Students like P and Gin are glad that Cal Poly has listened to the student body and community and taken the first step to repair their trust. They also have a few ideas on the next steps they would like the university to take to ensure their safety.
“We just want to push for clear transparency and communication with the students on campus,” said P. “We deserve to know if they're going to be back, and, preferably, we want to hear that they won't be invited back.”
“I'm asking the Career Center and the university leadership to not invite anyone who is actively kidnapping students and parents and children from their families,” said Gin.
“It creates a dangerous environment for students and faculty and staff and I don't feel safe going to campus if they're allowing Border Patrol to come into our campus and recruit students.”
