On Feb. 26, Ellie Aghayeva, a student at Columbia University, came home after a night of studying. She was later detained by federal immigration agents, who the university alleged used false pretenses to enter her residential building. She was later released after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani raised the issue as a point of concern with President Trump.
But Aghayeva’s story highlights a critical gap in UO’s infrastructure and draws attention to something that student workers have been struggling with since the start of the school year. Although the University Housing maintains strict policies for Residential Assistants in nearly all situations, it does not have a clear policy on ICE or federal officers requesting entry into a residence hall.
Nathaniel Pratt, a current sophomore at UO and RA for Kalapuya Ilihi, mentioned the various responses they are trained in to address a myriad of situations, such as fires in the building, potential earthquakes or police activity. The document he showed was over 250 pages long, and was updated annually – and there was not a single mention of immigration enforcement activities.
“In my eyes, dorm areas are one of the highest risk areas for ICE activity, and the fact we haven’t really gotten anything specific is getting more and more concerning,” Pratt said.
Pratt mentioned how ICE had briefly come up in his RA training, and they were instructed to contact pro-staff.
With the recent legislative win for ICE alerts for K-12 institutions and higher institutions, UO will have to use its emergency notification system to contact students when there is ICE activity on campus. However, Pratt raises scrutiny against the speed of the system.
“Our alert system isn’t always the fastest – I know what I’m supposed to do (in emergencies), but I don’t know what will happen and that’s a very concerning feeling,” Pratt said. “I’ve had residents ask about it and I know that people are worried.”
Diego Duarte, a senior at UO and a RA at Global Scholars Hall, echoed similar concerns.
“I’ve not received a single word from anybody officially or unofficially in leadership or my management sphere,” Duarte said. “It’s been really frustrating, like this is a thing that students care about and are scared about.”
Duarte referenced Aghayeva’s case and highlighted the importance of these conversations and the real-world impacts of not adopting clear training protocols around ICE. After Aghayeva’s case, Columbia University adopted a stricter code and additional steps to protect students from further ICE encounters.
“As employees, what’s our safety in interacting with ICE?” Duarte said. “If this student worker were an immigrant, would they be required by their job to interact with ICE if it’s unsafe – could they lose their job for fleeing?”
Duarte is also a member of the UO Student Workers Union, which has been vocal about student worker and campus community safety in adopting holistic ICE policies.
“Explaining the differences between judicial and administrative warrants, clarifying what to say to officers when they request information or request access to spaces and clarifying that workers who might be threatened by federal officers can leave the situation without risk to their jobs,” Duarte said. “Those are all things that we want the university to clarify and provide training on to employees in relevant public-facing jobs.”
