Binghamton University students and faculty gathered on Thursday to protest President Donald Trump’s recent executive order blocking entry to the United States to citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Walking across campus from the Pegasus Statue to the Couper Administration Building, the protesters chanted phrases like “You can’t ban BU” and “Education is a right. Fight, fight, fight.”
Morteza Sarailoo, a fourth-year graduate student studying electrical engineering, organized the protest along with the BU Graduate Student Organization (GSO) and 49 similar student groups across the country. International graduate students communicated through a Facebook group called “Academics United – No to Visa and Immigration Ban” to organize events at the same time and stand in solidarity nationwide.
Protesters expressed their disagreement with Trump’s executive order, issued on Jan. 27, which suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days and halted all immigration from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia for 90 days.
The groups chose to protest because they said they felt the order was illegally targeted at certain groups and stood against the stated values of the Constitution. Sarailoo noted that the language of the order could potentially allow the government to extend the ban as long as they wish, something he feels is illegal.
“We don’t care if you call it a Muslim ban or a ban of people from certain areas in the world,” Sarailoo said. “It’s discrimination against humans based on fear, and it is not something that we feel should be practiced in this country. I think the order is against American values and is undermining the values of the American people.”
GSO President Plash Sachdeva, a second-year graduate student studying computer science, spoke about the unity between the international students on campus and the rest of the BU student body.
“We just want to show our support to the people affected by the ban because international students are a family on campus who are here legally,” Sachdeva said. “They are students, and we are all welcome students here.”
Speaking at the rally, protesters stressed the importance of diversity and free speech in academia, and they said they feared that these values would be limited because of the inability to travel imposed by the ban. At the administration building, they were met by University President Harvey Stenger and Provost Donald Nieman, who expressed their support for the protesters and stressed that BU did not share the values seen in the ban.
Stenger noted the large international student population on campus, with more than 3,000 students attending the University from over 100 different countries. He felt that the presence of international students helped to create a sense of community felt on campus and in the surrounding area.
“What we have always believed in is that by having students come here and be educated here, that the world would become smaller,” Stenger said. “And the world would become friendlier, because we would have learned from each other. By banning certain countries from coming here, that goes in the opposite direction.”
He continued, noting that the University had been working closely with the 81 students and four faculty members from the affected countries.
“We have been working with them closely to make sure they understand that we are here to support them and to protect them,” Stenger said. “And to make sure that they are safe within our University and within our community.”