Harper Rzepczynski, Opinions Editor
Though the frigid December air slammed into my face as I waited outside O’Hare International Airport for a taxi to downtown, I could not be more relieved to finally be back home after a long first semester at Sewanee. This was an intermission, a break, three weeks of freedom from stress.
Even so, after spending so much time in rural Tennessee, I had grown accustomed to living in a bubble, so being thrust back into the middle of a political hotspot threw me for a loop. Chicago was besieged by ICE raids. I could sense the tension across my hometown like a constant dread inflicted on all of us, no matter the demographic; I could feel the anxiety wafting off of my friends, many of whom have migrant parents; I could hear the outrage of protesters roaring in the streets; I could see “F–K ICE” written in Sharpie across ads at train stations. It was inescapable.
It seemed like I was hearing about another ICE raid in Chicago every day. Amidst this never-ending apprehension, I began to realize my guilt. Living in Sewanee for the past four months, I had been privileged to be so cut off from America’s boiling political climate. Where is our anger in Sewanee? Where is our fear, if not for ourselves then for our friends? And, most importantly, where are our actions, our voices? It should not matter that we live in an isolated part of the United States because we are not immune.
U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known by the acronym ICE, was formed along with the Department of Homeland Security following the September 11 attacks. According to ICE’s current official website, their job is to “target public safety threats such as convicted criminal undocumented aliens and gang members, as well as individuals who have otherwise violated our nation’s immigration laws.” Though ICE has always been controversial, the Trump administration has taken things even further through constantly spewing anti-immigration rhetoric, allowing federal agents to act violently towards protestors and everyday civilians, and excusing not only the recent murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis, but also the deaths of at least 32 people in ICE custody last year as well as alleged rapes by staff in ICE-contracted detention centers. ICE and its parent agency are also using blatantly neo-Nazi and white nationalist memes in recruiting pitches, and, just down the road from Sewanee, a Chattanooga newspaper columnist termed ICE’s fierce measures ethnic cleansing.
I know firsthand that people are absolutely terrified, especially in cities with large Latino populations like Chicago. There are people my age who will not let their parents be alone because of their lack of citizenship; there are people who are afraid to speak Spanish in public; there are people who need to carry around their birth certificates now, despite being natural-born citizens. These are not “unique or extreme cases”– these people are my friends, former classmates, and former coworkers. Everybody is afraid, and the Trump administration has no intention of stopping.
College campuses tend to be oases of political opinions and action, and this situation is no exception. The University of Minnesota and Macalester College, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., the site of Good and Pretti’s homicides, have been extremely outspoken about this issue. Their independent student newspapers, the MN Daily and Mac Weekly, reported on the Day of Truth and Silence on January 23, where 700 businesses closed in a state-wide strike/protest. Additionally, Univ. of Minnesota has offered online class options for at-risk students, and Macalester has published an Immigration Response Guidance webpage. Students at the University of Chicago have also rigorously reported on ICE through measures including posting a tracking map, highlighting local volunteer-run programs to help migrants, reporting on deportations on the southside of the city, criticizing the university’s official statement through protests, and calling students to action through the student-run newspaper. Loyola University Chicago students have posted an ice tracker as well, and its independent student newspaper, The Loyola Phoenix, has made its stance clear by establishing solidarity with Minnesota..
However, it is not just urban university students who are speaking out and taking action. In rural Maine, Bowdoin College and Bates College students have used their voices to denounce ICE’s violent tactics. As ICE arrived in their area, Bates’ student-run newspaper called on students to volunteer, support friends, donate, and educate themselves. Many students joined neighboring townspeople in a Lewiston “ICE OUT NOW” protest. Bowdoin’s student newspaper also offered advice on how to resist, support immigrant neighbors, and knowing your rights.
So what about Sewanee?
After all, we’re the only college in America owned by the Episcopal Church, a denomination whose leaders and laity have been not only vocal but active across the country. Late last month, 154 Episcopal bishops released a joint statement denouncing the recent brutality at the hands of the U.S., condemning our government for allowing and even provoking violence. They wrote, “We urge the immediate suspension of ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minnesota and in any community where enforcement has eroded public trust.” Additionally, they emphasized, “Each of us has real power: community power, financial power, political power, and knowledge power.”
The church’s activism makes the silence among Sewanee students even more striking.
There was an article in the Sewanee Purple last spring on the impact of the administration’s student visa revocations at other institutions and Reverend Amanda Gott’s February 1 sermon at All Saints’ Chapel decrying ICE. An immigration law specialist who teaches in Sewanee’s politics department also gave a talk Sunday at St. Mark & St. Paul parish in the village about justice and finding home amid what’s happening in the immigration system. But too often, our campus community has appeared dormant. A common argument might be that Sewanee is in the middle of nowhere, and we are safe. While yes, we live in an isolated bubble, I believe it is incredibly tone-deaf to believe that we do not have to fight for political freedoms because we are privileged enough to be far away from the ruthless ferocities demonstrated by the Trump administration. At Bowdoin College, an institution nearly as rural as Sewanee, an article in the student-run Bowdoin Orient titled “Beyond the Bowdoin bubble” urged students to consider their privilege and recognize that they should join the fight regardless of where they live. Less than two months later, ICE began appearing around Bowdoin’s campus, which only furthers the point that none of us are immune.
After all, students at Sewanee are currently at risk. International students at other institutions have had student visas suspended, and the Trump administration has denied entry to students from more and more countries over the past year. Last year, Sewanee’s administration cautioned our international students about returning to their home countries amid the administration’s crackdown. Returning from their home countries last month after winter break, our classmates endured fears of being detained or turned away while re-entering the U.S. One anonymous student described seeing another international student from their country pulled from the customs line at an American international airport. The Sewanee student was dismayed to board their next flight and see that the other student was not onboard and on their way to a nearby U.S. college campus. That student remains haunted by uncertainty over whether their acquaintance was turned away from our border and sent back home.
Tennessee itself has grown more frightening. On February 4, The Guardian released an article describing how Tennessee’s Republican legislative leaders were working in lockstep with Trump adviser Stephen Miller to introduce several extreme pro-ICE bills. These bills include requiring police statewide to comply with and support ICE raids, a measure that could include Sewanee police and the Franklin County sheriff’s office. Hospitals and public schools would be required to check patients’ and students’ immigration status and report those who are undocumented. This policy would challenge the watershed 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe, which extended the freedom of attending U.S. public schools to all undocumented children. The bill package would also make it a felony for local officials and state judges to resist or encourage tracking of ICE activity. This should make it clear: the administration’s extreme tactics are steadily moving closer and closer to us. Even though places like our Mountain are not that remote, but even here, ignorance could soon cease to be an option.
It’s important to note that Sewanee students aren’t always silent. Early last year, Sewanee students joined in a grassroots fundraising campaign that raised more than $60,000 to help a fellow student’s family members escape the war in Gaza. As recently as May 2024, students joined national protests over Israel’s activity in Palestine, setting up tents and staging a sit-in that took over the front of All Saints’ Chapel for days. This demonstration brought news crews to campus and ultimately led the administration to agree to the student protesters’ demands for more transparency on endowment investment policies. Further back, Sewanee displayed campus-wide action in 2018 when students successfully protested for the revocation of an honorary degree given to nationally-known journalistic disgrace Charlie Rose after he was publicly exposed for severe sexual harassment. Initially, Sewanee’s Board of Regents refused student demands to revoke Rose’s honorary degree. However, the governing board reversed itself after students worked tirelessly on protests and countless articles in the Purple. There is power in our voices, and failing to raise them out of privileged carelessness is the opposite of what EQB stands for.
So, what can we do? First, educate and inform ourselves and resist feeling immune in our tight-knit Mountain bubble. Remember that you or somebody you know could fall victim, Sewanee student or not. Know your rights, linked here on ACLU.org. Talk about what’s going on and spread information to others. On-campus media such as The Mountain Goat, the Purple, and Sticks magazine give students opportunities to reach a wider audience, and we should use them to help one another stay informed about what’s happening not only nationally but also in neighboring towns and cities such as Tullahoma and Chattanooga, where protesters have turned out to demand “ICE Out!”
In an interview, Loyola Phoenix Editor-in-Chief Lilli Malone told the Purple, “I do think that student newspapers…are in a really unique position to provide concrete and fact-checked information in a way other platforms are not.” Sewanee, we have more of a voice than we think. And it is now or never that we join the fight against vicious violence, oppressive authority and state-sponsored hatred.