The Trump Admin’s Attacks on Higher Ed, Immigrants, & Freedom of Speech

The UAW represents 100,000 higher education workers, including campus staff, student workers, faculty, research assistants, and postdoctoral fellows. Drawing on our long tradition of protest, support for international peace, and commitment to education and research for all, the UAW condemns in the fullest terms recent actions taken by the Trump administration to cut federal research funding; to detain, intimidate, and deport international students and workers on visas; and to attack freedom of speech. All of these decisions will impact critical research, academic work, and the livelihoods of all campus workers, including thousands of UAW members.

The attacks against the freedom of speech and association go hand-in-hand with the attacks against our institutions of higher education in general. In its first fifty days, the administration has made it clear that it will try to cut essential funding for research and education to attempt to force universities to comply with its attacks on freedom of speech and inhumane crackdown on immigrants. Last week, the administration announced a $400 million cut to Columbia University’s federal funding. Columbia is just the first target, as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced a list of sixty institutions that will face “enforcement” if they fail to comply with the federal government’s orders. 

Furthermore, they will go beyond the law to punish people for the content of their speech. Just days after the announcement of cuts, ICE illegally detained Mahmoud Khalil, an activist against the war on Gaza and a former UAW member. The State Department also illegally revoked his legal permanent residency. We call for his immediate release. We also oppose the threat to revoke visas and deport more students and workers at universities across the country. 

We call on university administrations to join us in the effort to preserve federal funding and protect all of our students and workers. Today’s funding cuts by the federal government are tomorrow’s struggles over what we deserve at the bargaining table. Campaigns against immigrant students and workers are an attack on any person who organizes for economic and social justice. Otherwise accepted forms of collective action become cast as “illegal protest.” To counter these threats, we must come together as a mass movement across the country that brings together all workers in a united fight. We must organize for nothing less than our essential funding, our jobs, and our common fundamental rights of speech and expression.