Point Park’s Political Science Association (PPPSA) began petitioning students to require the university to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from operating on campus property last week.
As of publishing, the petition “for the protection of Point Park University Students” has garnered 130 signatures, according to its change.org page.
Beyond prohibiting ICE from entering campus, the petition asks the university not to disclose student information to ICE and block campus police from cooperating with ICE unless legally compelled.
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said in February that his office will not comply with ICE, according to the Tribune-Review.
Kyle MacLaughlin, president of PPPSA and SGA, said he was happy with students’ response to the petition thus far.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of representatives from different student organizations on campus,” MacLaughlin said, “and spoken to individual students, and it seems that this is something that people are really passionate about.
I’m glad they are because, if you ask me, it’s only going to get worse over the next couple of years.”
Lou Corsaro, assistant vice president of public relations, said Point Park will cooperate with local, state and federal authorities “with regard to any law enforcement action on campus.”
Corsaro said the university encourages students to report suspected ICE agents on campus so that campus police can appropriately respond.
“To access private areas of campus, ICE officers would have to present a judicial warrant,” Corsaro said.
MacLaughlin said that he hopes administration will be more forward about collaborating with federal immigration officials.
“I definitely still have concerns,” MacLaughlin said. “I would like the university to put out a more comprehensive and publicly available explanation of what the process [to prevent federal overreach] is.
I think it would be useful for students to have an understanding of what options the school has to protect them if there was an ICE presence on campus.”
MacLaughlin founded PPPSA in spring 2024 as a non-partisan student organization. The petition is meant to protect Point Park student’s best interest, PPPSA said in a statement to the Globe. They added that they encourage other student organizations on campus to join them in asking the administration to bar ICE.
“We believe it is a right for students in and outside of Point Park to have the ability to flourish academically and personally,” the statement from PPPSA said. “Allowing unjust immigration enforcement practices in our school takes away this right of education.”
MacLaughlin said he encourages any student concerned with President Donald Trump’s immigration policies to sign the petition.
“I think students need to continue to make sure the university knows their stance,” MacLaughlin said, “and I think they need to continue to organize to ensure that they have their university, and student community, with them to resist what might be four years–maybe more–of really crazy overreach.”
Riley Mahon, a sophomore political science major, said Point Park should follow in the city’s footsteps and refuse to cooperate with ICE.
“ICE is a rogue agency,” Mahon said, “that has been kidnapping and illegally trying to deport students who are here legally at some universities. It’s extremely important that the administration of Point Park makes it clear that they will follow the law and protect their students of all backgrounds.”
MacLaughlin said the petition was first proposed in response to the Trump administration’s proposed immigration crackdown prior to his inauguration. In February, 11,000 migrants were deported, according to NBC News.
PPPSA’s motivation changed, MacLaughlin said, after the controversial ICE detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University.
Trump referred to Khalil as a “radical foreign pro-Hamas student” in a Truth Social post, a claim that both Khalil and his lawyers deny, according to CBS News.
Khalil is a Palestinian immigrant and has a green card, according to the New York Times, making him a lawful U.S. citizen. The Times also reported that Khalil was a main negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group of over 60 campus organizations advocating that Columbia divest billion dollar endowments to Israel.
