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On Tuesday morning, several student organizations wrote to USC Gould School of Law Dean Franita Tolson and Dean Robin Apodaca objecting to the law school’s decision for allowing lawyers from enforcement agencies like the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to attend recruiting events.
“We condemn the decision-makers who approved ICE’s participation and the institutional response that disclaimed responsibility,” wrote USC law students in the Open Letter. “USC Gould possessed the authority to deny ICE recruitment access and affirmatively chose not to exercise it.”
The law school said in a statement Monday that Tolson had not yet received the letter from the student groups, but that she wanted to “clarify that our career interviewing program is a virtual and voluntary event, which features over 100 legal employers from across the country.”
“These employers register to participate, including various governmental departments at the local, state and federal levels,” Tolson said. “Our law students have a diverse range of career interests, spanning the public and private sectors, and through this career program, they have the option to pursue interviews best suited toward their individual professional goals.”
While the immigration court system, including the ICE attorneys who represent DHS in removal proceedings before the immigration courts, has always lacked significant due process protections, Niels Frenzen, director of the Immigration Clinic at USC, told Annenberg Media in a statement, “Over the past year there has been a profound institutional transformation for the worse.”
According to its webpage, the clinic provides free legal representation to clients from Mexico, Central and South America and Africa.
“The immigration laws are now being used to terrorize immigrant and citizen communities alike,” Frenzen said. “And while I have encouraged students to consider working within the federal government in the past, anyone who today takes a position with the Department of Homeland Security or the immigration courts will be complicit in the Administration’s ongoing unconstitutional and illegal mass deportation campaign.”
The groups wrote in the letter about the fear that many on campus and around the country are feeling.
“Students with undocumented loved ones are afraid,” they wrote. “The surrounding community is afraid. A law school that claims to stand for justice should be ashamed to have allowed that fear to persist by legitimizing ICE through its recruitment practices.”
Attached at the end of the letter is a Google Form link asking students, faculty and staff members, “Would you like to sign on to the statement calling for ICE’s removal from USC Gould recruiting activities?”
In her statement, Tolson said that “providing professional support is a top priority at our law school, and likewise providing student support and care – including from me – is a vital priority as well.”
“Should any Gould student, at any time, have concerns about our law school community, they are always welcome to reach out to me about it,” she wrote.
No further information or updates have been provided by the Gould School of Law.