Border Patrol Backs Out of UC Irvine Career Fair After Student Petition Calls Agency “Unsafe” and “Offensive”

Border Patrol Backs Out of UC Irvine Career Fair After Student Petition Calls Agency “Unsafe” and “Offensive”

Here we are again in the environment of perpetually offended brats. Pick a college, any college. I trust that you will find them.

According to The College Fix, a petition circulating among University of California students earlier this week that called for UC Irvine officials to remove a U.S. Customs and Border Protection booth from the school’s upcoming fall career fair. Why? Because the presence of border patrol officers would make students who are in the country illegally feel “unsafe”.

This from Change.org:

We, as students from UC Irvine, are demanding that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be removed as participants for the upcoming Fall Career Fair scheduled on Thursday, October 22nd. The Career Fair, which aims to bring together recruiters from various business organizations and companies, provides job and career opportunities for students on campus, and this year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection was invited to be a recruiter.

In the 2015-2016 academic year, over 500 students at UCI identify as AB540/DREAMer/undocumented, and while UCI has a commitment to ensuring safety and protection to every student on campus, we should be no exception. The undocumented community is directly affected by deportation and detention policies that are carried out by Border Patrol, and having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students’ safety and well-being. Furthermore, there are many more students who come from mixed-status families (i.e. have undocumented immigrant spouses, parents, siblings, or relatives) or who have known a loved one/community member experience family separation and detention and therefore would be affected by US customs and Border Patrol’s presence on campus.

Border Patrol has historically enacted violence and unjust killings at and within the U.S.-Mexico border. Over 400 migrants die each year crossing the border, a number that continues to increase even when migration across the border decreases. CBP also has a terrible record for forcibly detaining and apprehending migrants with zero accountability. The border itself is also an arbitrary boundary line that serves to control migration and contributed to the notion of “illegal” immigration, a term that dehumanizes our right to migrate freely and live as human beings to survive. The border separates families, and having Border Patrol present at this fair reminds our student population the devastation facing those who have been directly and indirectly affected by deportations, killings, and separations.

The fact that UCI has invited an agency known for racial profiling, use of force, and unjustified violence is an act of disrespect and insensitivity and ignores the struggles and needs of the undocumented student community on campus. Border Patrol abuse and violence not only affects migrants at the border but it also extends to the communities and families beyond, including those of us at UCI.

Bringing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to UCI blatantly disregards the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of students on campus. Please sign to stand in solidarity with all undocumented/AB 540/DREAMers/and Allies at UCI.

Someone clearly did not tell the individual who wrote this petition about how some of these migrants die each year and why the numbers increase while the migrations across the border decreases. Hint: they migrate and cross over illegally as in against the law. They’re not crossing at the appropriate checkpoints in your border town, genuis. They are crossing under the cover of night in unpatrolled areas and walking in harsh desert conditions for sometimes days or weeks on end with limited (if any) water, food and supplies. Someone clearly did not tell the writer of this petition that we can’t just “migrate freely” across borders, across “arbitrary boundaries”. Someone did not tell this person that there are rules that need to be followed when entering a country that is not your country of origin. Oh, right. Rules. I guess these people’s parents missed the boat on that one.

The UC Irvine Career Center initially responded that the career fair was to provide an opportunity for all students and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol was no exception to this rule. Campus officials argued that students were “young, mature adults capable of handling [their] own mental and physical well-being”. Students filing the petition pushed back and as a result, CBP decided not to attend the campus career fair this week. Guess they weren’t too confident in these young, mature adults in keeping it together should CBP arrive.

I got a kick out of this picture from a career fair held at UC Irvine this past spring:

Fearless leaders, huh? Fearless. Bold. Brave. Undaunted. Unflinching. Yet we have a group of young individuals coming out of college today who are fearless so long as the ideas and philosophies don’t break their ideological, sheltered bubble.

UC Irvine is the same school that petitioned a vote to remove the American Flag from hanging in an administrative building last year, claiming the flag was offensive to some students. Now Border Patrol is “offensive”. In fact, any given student at any given time can say that any organization/corporation can possess “offensive” qualities at a career fair. In fact, let’s do away with military recruiters appearing on college campuses because, you know, some Muslims may be offended. And while we’re at it, we may as well scrap having any sort of recruitment outlets for DEA or even local law enforcement. What else is left? Medical facilities? Hospitals? Well, the people who organize these things do need to keep in mind that some of these young, “mature” adults are not majoring in the medical profession so, they may get a little offended by their presence or feel slightly inadequate because they’ve decided to major in Liberal Arts. A company’s looking for chemical engineers with no less than a 4.0 GPA? Nope. Can’t have that. They might just hurt that C student’s feelings if they tell him this…so let’s not invite that company to the next career fair, either. In fact, let’s not have any career fairs at all. Because you know, we as Americans are an over-privileged society and if borders don’t matter and are arbitrary, we and our immigrant counterparts can just hop, skip and jump over them and get a higher-paying job in Europe, right?

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