Tim Tai

As the Trump administration targets international students due to involvement in pro-Palestine protests, President Maurie McInnis emphasized that Yale will follow the law above all else in its response.

In an interview on Wednesday, McInnis said Yale will “comply” if ICE issues a warrant for a noncitizen member of the University. If ICE makes a request outside of legal mechanisms, she said the University will “reply.” The University spokesperson previously told the News that Yale will not voluntarily share student information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, if the agency requests it.

“We will always follow the federal law,” McInnis said. “We have to.”

McInnis said that Yale does not have official policies for if ICE arrests a student. She said the University would respond to such arrests on an individual basis, and the considerations of what Yale would do “would be legal and not something I can answer.”

She added that external law enforcement agencies are not allowed on Yale’s campus unless they coordinate with the Yale Police Department. Guidance recently released by Yale Public Safety instructs members of the Yale community to request the credentials of any law enforcement agents they see on campus who appear to be external to Yale. If they confirm the agents to be from an outside agency, they should call the YPD and wait for an officer.

Civil rights attorney Alex Taubes LAW ’15, who provided legal representation for a Yale protester arrested last year, said that Yale could challenge a subpoena issued by ICE about a member of the University. Taubes argued that Yale could claim such a subpoena violates federal law by invading privileges, privacy and constitutional rights.

“Yale could do basically whatever they want, but they don’t have to cooperate if they don’t want to,” he said. “Certainly they don’t have to roll over and do whatever the government tells them.”

Maureen Abell, a staff attorney at the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, agreed that Yale can challenge the legitimacy or scope of a subpoena. But she said the success of those attempts would depend on the reason for the subpoena and “how sloppy [ICE is] with the people work,” such as the manner in which agents arrest.

Yale’s Office of International Students and Scholars, or OISS, is contacting all international students and scholars, according to McInnis. She said the office is working to help noncitizens within the University understand their legal rights and the resources available to them.

969 people with a Yale login registered for a “Know Your Rights” town hall webinar that OISS hosted on Tuesday for international members of the Yale community. OISS also posted a new page on its website about how to retain legal immigration status in the U.S.

“I think there are lots of students who are incredibly stressed out,” Abell said, so she sees providing legal representation as “incredibly important.”

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with an accompanying fact sheet that pledged to cancel the visas of students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. The Trump administration has since arrested international students and scholars who participated in pro-Palestinian activism on campuses across the country.

At Columbia University, ICE arrested green card-holder Mahmoud Khalil, who has Palestinian family history and was a leader of Columbia’s encampment. At Tufts University, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested by plainclothes officers a year after writing an opinion piece in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to the war in Gaza. Students at Cornell and Columbia left the country rather than be detained after ICE revoked their visas.

The Trump administration has asserted that it has broad legal authority to deport noncitizens who it thinks could harm U.S. foreign policy, while some lawyers argue that students who are in the U.S. legally are being targeted in violation of their free speech and due process rights.