The University of Wyoming says ICE has not come to campus looking for students or researchers. But faculty and staff are preparing for the possibility that it does.

During an informational session Monday, UW employees learned “less than 10 students” have seen their visas revoked, while visa-holders among the faculty were advised to travel abroad with papers in case the rules change while they’re away.

Instructors and public-facing staff were also reminded not to interfere with ICE actions on campus.

“Don’t stop them if they are insisting on doing something. That could be construed as obstruction,” said one of the presenters. “What you can do is say, ‘I don’t have authority to give you permission to enter a nonpublic space. Please contact our attorneys. Please contact our university police department, who can assist you further’ … And we will take it from there.”

Under the Trump Administration, the Department of Homeland Security now allows ICE and other federal immigration agents to visit so-called “sensitive” locations — such as churches, schools or college campuses — to arrest individuals.

Now that ICE is allowed on campus — and now that the Trump Administration has demonstrated a willingness to go after both students and researchers — UW is weighing the possibility that federal immigration agents come knocking.

UW has provided a checklist to its public-facing employees about how to handle interactions with federal agents, including those from ICE.

Despite rumors to the contrary, ICE has not yet come to campus, a UW spokesman said Friday. The federal agency itself declined to comment.

“Due to our operational tempo and the increased interest in our agency, we are not able to research and respond to rumors or specifics of routine daily operations for ICE,” writes Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for the agency’s regional office in Denver.

During the informational session Monday, Deborah Marutzky from UW’s Human Resources division and Michele Fukawa from the Office of General Counsel gave a presentation about various federal immigration-related developments affecting UW.

“We’re not complete experts in immigration law, but we are working with immigration attorneys,” Fukawa said. “We have outside counsel. When things get very complicated, we do ask them, and we get formal advice.”

The presenters fielded questions about what is and isn’t allowed during ICE visits, the current state of visa revocations, and guidance for international travel and hiring. The pair encouraged folks across campus to reach out with any follow-up questions.

“We’re here to provide as much information as we can,” Fukawa said. “Just realize that everything is very fluid. We may not have all the answers because things are just changing on a daily basis.”

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How to handle ICE on campus

If and when an ICE agent appears in a staff member’s office, or in an instructor’s classroom, Fukawa’s main advice Monday reiterated the central message of the earlier checklist shared with employees.

“If they are going to do what they’re going to do … don’t intervene,” she said. “It’ll be a very stressful situation, honestly, if an agent comes into a classroom, into an office.”

ICE agents are only permitted in public areas generally accessible to anyone. Classrooms, labs, gyms and other “restricted” areas are designated “nonpublic” by UW Regulation 6-4. The checklist distributed to staff advises:

If the agent attempts to enter a nonpublic area or to present a warrant or subpoena, you may direct them to [the Office of General Counsel] and state the following: ‘I understand you are here for law enforcement purposes, but I am not authorized to grant you permission to enter nonpublic areas or accept any documentation on behalf of the university.’

But employees who go beyond this verbal warning are putting themselves in the line of fire. The checklist advises staff not to obstruct ICE activities, and even to avoid the appearance of obstruction.

“At all times, stay calm and respectful,” the checklist states. “Avoid any actions that could be perceived as interfering, such as physically obstructing an agent, alerting the individual under investigation, concealing or destroying documents, or making deceptive statements.”

During the session Monday, one attendee asked:

You mentioned that we should be mindful not to do something that would be considered obstruction, right? What would be the consequences if we did? Do you have a 10 second answer for that? Is it different whether an international professor does it or an American professor does it?

Fukawa replied:

Federal agents may have the authority to arrest someone who is obstructing. I think that, in itself, is a pretty good deterrent, and so that’s why we advise … don’t do anything that might be construed as obstruction.

The prohibition against outright interference doesn’t mean UW employees are powerless in such a situation.

“Request to see the agent’s credentials or identification,” the checklist notes. “If they do not have a business card, document their name, agency, title and any badge number … Ask the agent why they are on campus if they have not shared that information already. Agents may limit or withhold information about their visit.”

One attendee asked whether it’s acceptable to film ICE agents who enter an office or classroom. Fukawa didn’t give a blanket answer.

“That is a whole different subject, but we can certainly provide some guidance on that,” she said. “Some of it may have to do with the individual rules and what the classroom rules are, what the public space rules are.”

As a general rule, people are allowed to film police and federal agents performing their official duties so long as they’re not interfering. But there are several caveats to that rule of thumb, possibly some affecting campuses specifically, and even more extralegal considerations, such as considering one’s own physical safety, that complicate the question.

Other attendees floated the idea of posting printouts detailing how to handle ICE interactions in their classrooms.

Student visas being revoked without notification

The presenters detailed some recent changes to the country’s system for verifying and permitting foreigners to study or work in the United States. These changes are impacting UW.

“It’s just been a very stressful time,” Fukawa told the gathered UW employees. “We ask for patience as we’re kind of working through this. This is new.”

Unlike other kinds of visas, student visas are managed jointly by the university and the federal government. Many international students are in the country on an F-1 visa, which allows a foreigner to enroll full-time at an American university and restricts them to working on-campus.

These visa records are kept on the Department of Homeland Security’s Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS) website.

In the past, Fukawa said, designated school officers at UW managed this visa information.

“They are the ones that would normally terminate the status in SEVIS,” she said. “What is happening now is the federal government is terminating it. And our good friends over at ISS [the International Students and Scholars office] are finding out by refreshing the list of people [who have been terminated].”

When ISS does notice that a student is no longer on SEVIS, the office springs into action.

“We notify the students as soon as possible,” Fukawa said. “If they work at all, all work has to be terminated once their SEVIS record is terminated.”

The presenters said this has happened at UW “less than 10” times. There is no discernible pattern connecting the affected students.

“They come from all over,” Fukawa said. “They don’t come from any specific places, and they are not typically notified. We are not notified. We find it, as we said earlier, by refreshing in the SEVIS system.”

These terminations are happening across the country, forcing young scholars to decide whether they’ll leave the country and abandon their studies or stay and risk being swept up by ICE.

“This is unprecedented,” Fukawa said. “We’ve never seen anything like this. We’ve never seen terminations come down like this.”

One attendee asked why these visas are being revoked:

There have been reports of, you know, people with criminal records; people, even in a couple of cases, with speeding tickets [which] was reported by the Guardian today; protests; there was a memo about social media monitoring for students. Do we have a sense of what the distribution of reasons is?

“All of the above,” Fukawa replied.

“All of the above, none of the above,” Marutzky added. “They don’t tell us when they terminate the student. They don’t notify us why.”

International travel being complicated

The presenters said they had fielded several questions about traveling internationally. While there is no travel ban in place at the moment, they said international faculty going abroad to visit their home country or to conduct research ought to take precautions.

Specifically, they recommended traveling with papers — including a “passport valid for the next six months,” various immigration or visa records, petitions and approvals, three months of pay stubs, and “a letter from your department verifying continued full-time employment upon your return.”

“I would recommend, if you’re on an H-1B [visa] and you’re planning on traveling, that you come talk with us even if you have all of these documents — just so we can kind of take the temperature of what’s happening,” Fukawa said. “And if there’s other advice that we can give you, we will do that. We don’t want anyone stuck and unable to come back.”

Others recommended sharing copies of these documents with friends or colleagues in the United States and keeping those acquaintances abreast of one’s travel plans — such as by sending safe arrival texts.

Hiring delays likely

Recent federal changes are also hindering UW’s ability to efficiently hire international instructors and researchers.

“Previous to the recent administration, we were seeing H-1B positions come back in about 12 to 15 weeks,” Marutzky said. “Currently we’re seeing them maxed out at 25 to 26 weeks processing time … We can’t file extensions until six months out, but we’re not receiving responses from USCIS until about 25-26 [weeks], which is six months out.”

Fukawa added the new delays will “vary from country to country.”

“Consulates work at different paces,” she said. “But with extreme vetting and looking at all of the social media and all of that, there’s just going to be more delays.”

Fukawa said department heads and other faculty should not give up on filling positions with international students.

“I would hate to see all of this discourage people from bringing international students to campus,” she said. “They are such a wonderful part of our campus, and they do so much wonderful work on our campus. I do understand the fears that folks are having, but I would really hate people to be discouraged by that.”

There was no disagreement from the crowd, but one attendee responded:

The other side of the coin is we want international students to feel they can come here and not be afraid.

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