Students at Georgetown University are kicking up a storm about their school’s decision to invite the Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, to speak at this year’s commencement ceremony.
Student activists dropped a letter to the school administration on Monday, stating their peers would not be able to “celebrate their academic accomplishments and groundbreaking work at their own graduation,” should Johnson be present.
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An alumna followed suit and launched an online petition asking that the University rescind his invitation. Three hundred campaigners have signed the petition, which decries Johnson’s policies for having increased deportations and “torn countless families apart.”
“Graduation is supposed to be a safe, welcoming environment for students and families who have worked so hard to graduate, not a hostile of uncomfortable one,” wrote Hemly Ordonez, suggesting that Johnson’s mere presence would make undocumented students and their families feel unsafe:
“He shouldn’t receive an honorary degree from my alma mater because of the human rights abuses his department is responsible for every day…
“Johnson’s invitation is an insult to my family, to the myriad of Georgetown alumni from mixed-documented families and to the undocumented students who are preparing to graduate this month.”
Secretary Johnson is slated to speak at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service (SFS), which only represents a fraction of the student body, on May 21.
A graduating senior from the SFS, speaking to Georgetown Voice under condition of anonymity, described Johnson’s invitation as “very much a slap in the face.” “I have to shake hands with the person who has the power to deport me and my family,” he said.
Since coming to office, the Obama administration has taken a tough approach to immigration enforcement — deporting more than 2.5 million people, up 23% from his predecessor George W. Bush — perhaps in order to compensate for citizenship policies that some Americans perceive as too complacent toward illegal immigrants.
In his capacity as secretary, Johnson is in charge of enforcing existing immigration laws, including deportations, and oversees border security. However, he is far from a hardliner on the issue. He has publicly condemned the vilification of immigrants and called attention to misinformation around border security, as during his address to the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman’s 5th annual conference.
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“There is more we can do on border security to protect our borders from illegal migration. But as all of you know, building more walls is not the answer.”
He has also expressed disappointment at Congress’s failure to pass legislation addressing what he calls the systemic root causes of illegal migration in this country: “poverty and violence.”
The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) nonetheless restated its support for UndocuHoyas — an advocacy group for illegal students on campus — in a letter posted on Facebook:
We, as the GUSA Executive, support undocumented students and students with mixed status families as members of our community, and will do everything in our power to ensure that they meet with relevant administrators to express their concerns firsthand.