Freezing temperatures didn't stop students at the University of Cincinnati from protesting against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Wednesday. The protest was led by several student groups who are demanding that university leaders stand up to the federal government and declare the school a sanctuary campus.
Immigrant advocates define sanctuary campuses as universities that adopt policies to limit compliance with federal agencies like ICE by restricting their access to campus buildings, unless agents can present a federal judicial warrant. Sanctuary campuses also show public support for immigrant, undocumented and international students.
A petition with nearly 3,000 signatures, circulated by UC's Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) student group, calls on the university to establish itself as a sanctuary campus and provide non-compliance training for university employees.
Many of the students who spoke during the protest said they were disappointed and angry with UC President Neville Pinto and the university's Board of Trustees for not pushing back against political pressure to end the school's diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in 2025. They now worry that university leaders may coordinate with federal agents to carry out the deportation of UC students.
Mekael Abebe, president of the Ohio Student Association's UC chapter and a member of the YDSA student group, told WVXU that President Trump's dehumanization of immigrants and recent videos showing ICE's aggressive and sometimes deadly use of force in cities like Minneapolis have struck fear in the hearts of many in the local immigrant community, which includes his parents.
"Trump is trying to move his army of Gestapo into Ohio," he said. "It's scary for me, it's scary for my family who came here as immigrants."
Just about an hour's drive north of UC's campus, officials in the city of Springfield are preparing for a 30-day surge of immigration operations targeting Haitian immigrants next week, as the temporary protected status for many Haitian immigrants ends nationwide.
J. Bennet Guess, executive director for the ACLU of Ohio, released a statement Wednesday, warning the city's residents about the presence of ICE in their communities.
"This despicable surge in lawless ICE officers descending upon Springfield will ignite swells of fear within the Haitian community, terrorize our Black and Brown neighbors, and cause considerable damage to citizens and non-citizens alike," a portion of the statement reads.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump amplified a baseless and racist claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating cats and dogs.
Abebe says the impact of the Trump administration's disdain for non-citizens is already being felt on UC's campus, with the sharp decline in international student enrollment.
In fall 2025, UC announced a 25% drop in international graduate student enrollment, down nearly 700 students compared to the previous academic year.
"It's lost a lot of money for the university, not having those international students on campus at the volume that they used to be here,” Abebe said. “There's a clear correlation between that and Trump's aggressiveness on immigration. “
The university's enrollment manager and local immigration advocates told WVXU they anticipate this enrollment decline to have a lasting negative impact on Greater Cincinnati's economy.
WVXU reached out to a UC spokesperson about Wednesday's protest and the sanctuary petition, but did not receive a response.
A similar nationwide push to establish some universities as sanctuary campuses occurred following the start of Trump's first term in 2017, though few universities signed on.
After receiving a sanctuary campus petition signed by hundreds of faculty, students and alumni in 2017, a working group at Miami University determined that the university didn't have the legal authority to bar ICE agents from coming onto Miami's campus, and ultimately decided not to adopt proposed sanctuary policies.
That same year, Cincinnati City Council approved a resolution declaring Cincinnati a sanctuary city.
Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, senior counsel for the National Immigration Law Center, says that although many schools haven't gotten on board with adding sanctuary policies, they're well within their rights to do so.
"It's rooted in the protections of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment," she told WVXU. "Because [sanctuary campus policies are] rooted in existing law, we don't see any kind of downside at this time."
A similar student-led protest is scheduled to take place on Miami University's campus this Friday.
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