The Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Michigan condemns in the strongest possible terms the University of Michigan’s unconscionable decision to fire 3 international graduate workers and terminate their SEVIS statuses, resulting in their detention by ICE on October 16. At a time when the University should be standing up for its international workers, it has instead facilitated their political detention by ICE. The University is showing that it would rather enable the Trump Administration’s racist and xenophobic campaign against China than protect its own students and workers.
The University’s actions legitimize repeated federal attacks on Chinese workers that are both scientifically and legally unsound. In June, the FBI saddled grad worker Yunqing Jian and her boyfriend with agroterrorism charges for allegedly smuggling Fusarium graminearum into the country—a widely prevalent fungus that Jian was actually studying how to mitigate in her lab work. Around the same time, the federal government charged Dr. Chengxuan Han with “smuggling” materials related to C. elegans, a harmless and frequently-studied type of roundworm that can be found in the soil in any back yard. A federal press release labeled this “part of an alarming pattern that threatens our security” that “severely compromises the integrity of our nation’s research institutions.” Yet when sentencing Han to time served on September 10, US District Judge Matthew Leitman said: “This is not a case of smuggling in some sort of virus or a crop-destroying something or other. From what I can tell, this material was not a threat at all.”
Despite Han’s case being closed, U-M chose to continue persecuting students internally. The University launched its own “investigation,” and when 3 Chinese visiting grad workers declined to participate, U-M fired them and cancelled their SEVIS statuses. As a result, ICE detained the workers when they attempted to return to China on October 16. To be absolutely clear: Instead of protecting its international workers, U-M actively made them into targets for ICE. The University is targeting the most vulnerable among us, visiting graduate workers who lack the basic protections guaranteed by collective bargaining agreements. By singling them out first, the University is setting a dangerous precedent that erodes the safety and security of everyone who works and studies here. When the most vulnerable can be punished without recourse, it sends a clear message: no one is truly protected.
Now, the Trump Administration is criminally charging these workers for “smuggling dangerous biological materials into the country,” calling it “part of a long and alarming pattern of criminal activities committed by Chinese Nationals under the cover of the University of Michigan.” Improper transfers are often treated as administrative violations and usually draw only fines. Elevating this incident to federal criminal charges is a politically-motivated escalation that seeks to drum up xenophobia and sinophobia.
The University of Michigan chose to join the federal government’s fascist attacks on immigrants and go after its own workers. This is part of a pattern of inaction by the University of Michigan that has left many international workers feeling isolated, confused, and afraid (as with the proposed changes to federal rules governing I-20s; see resources grad workers have compiled at bit.ly/I-20Overview). It is also part of the Regents’ broader decision to play lackey to the Trump Administration in targeting Palestinians, transgender children, and academic freedom. The Regents choose to appease Trump even though U-M’s $2 billion in endowment earnings in the past year would provide a safeguard against federal threats to revoke U-M’s $1.2 billion in annual federal research funding. As grad workers, we absolutely reject the targeting of our Chinese coworkers and all international students in our community. We make the university run, and we will decide what our university looks like: a community where an attack on one is an attack on all; a community where we keep each other safe.
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