Editor’s Note: This story is developing and will be updated as new information becomes available.
Individuals identified as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen stationed in Restoration Church’s parking lot neighboring Nebraska Hall early on Wednesday, Dec. 3, according to Assistant Vice President and Deputy Chief Communications Officer Elizabeth Deal.
The University confirmed that ICE agents set up a staging area during “early morning hours” and left soon after.
Community members expressed concern online as photos circulated of nine individuals in plain clothing and unmarked cars gathered in a parking lot. Deal confirmed that ICE agents never entered University premises.
The headquarters of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is located on 3801 Nebraska Ave, which is across the street from Restoration Church.
This sighting comes nearly a year after an ICE impersonator was spotted on campus and amid President Donald Trump’s nationwide deportation efforts which have sparked outcry across the District and on campus.
Elaina Sherman, a sophomore in the School of International Affairs, was in class when she heard of the sighting from provost associate professor Garrett Grady-Lovelace.
“We all kind of tensed up,” Sherman said.
Sherman described the room of students who immediately got out their phones to text their friends and respective organizational group chats with confusion about whether the agents were on campus property.
Sherman said she texted her Sisterhood for International Engagement group chat because she knows people in the organization who live in Nebraska Hall. Other students in Nebraska Hall learned of the sighting through a floorwide groupchat with the pictures of the agents in the Restoration Church parking lot taken from a window on the second floor of the dorm building.
Sherman said Grady-Lovelace, who teaches in the School of International Service’s Department of Environment, Development and Health, is also a member of the University’s American Association of University Professors chapter and relayed information to the class from various faculty member sources.
The University has provided guidance for questions surrounding immigration enforcement, including verifying that AUPD would not engage in collaborative efforts with ICE or other law enforcement officials unless legally required, according to a statement from Feb. 6.
While the Undergraduate Senate passed a referendum to make the University a sanctuary campus in March, the University has not adopted this status.
“I think that we should be a sanctuary status,” Sherman said. “I think it’s very in line with what AU stands for and the fact that we’re not is very strange.”
This article was edited by Gabrielle McNamee, Abigail Hatting and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting.
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