OAKLAND — The University of California’s national summit on undocumented students started going sideways seconds after UC President Janet Napolitano stepped to the podium to make her opening remarks Thursday morning.
As Napolitano greeted 260 attendees from across the nation who came to share ideas on admitting, retaining and supporting students who lack legal immigration status, dozens of undocumented students around the room suddenly stood and raised their fists in the air.
“We are not here to simply fill your seats for your political gain,” said one.
“We demand that you listen to us,” said another.
“You cannot make decisions … about our lives without knowing our personal struggles,” said a third.
Several other undocumented students heckled the UC chief before all of them walked out, leaving Napolitano to speak to an auditorium left one-third empty.
“I was not surprised, and I thought they were very articulate,” Napolitano said during an interview in her Oakland office a few hours later. “But now I want them to channel that energy into something positive that we can do — this is about moving forward.”
The students who walked out on her speech — mostly “Dreamers” whose parents brought them to this country illegally as children — went to a nearby hallway to plan what they hoped to accomplish in the conference’s breakout sessions on career development, civic engagement, community involvement, financial aid and immigration legal services.
Their mistrust level remained high because many key student and faculty leaders on these issues weren’t invited to the conference at all, some of the students complained.
“It was very exclusive: The nomination process was not open to every (undocumented) student,” said Ciclady Rodriguez, 21, a UC Berkeley media studies major.
And Napolitano herself — who as Homeland Security secretary from 2009 to 2013 presided over almost 1.5 million deportations — remains a polarizing figure.
“How are students supposed to feel welcomed?” asked Alexis Buz, 21, an ethnic studies and public health major at UC San Diego. “We are not satisfied with her presence … and the little Band-Aid solutions she has made.”
In the interview with this newspaper, Napolitano defended her record. She pointed out that with Congress stalemated on immigration reform, the only big change in recent years has been the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy launched in 2012 to prevent deportation of many Dreamers — a policy she wrote and implemented.
And since taking UC’s reins in 2013, Napolitano said, “We have taken major steps in support of undocumented students, and we continue to look for best practices to adopt knowing that the federal law hasn’t changed.”
Among the steps Napolitano has taken: She started meeting with undocumented students and announced $5 million to provide more resources to meet their needs. And she formed an advisory committee and created an Undocumented Student Legal Services Center to aid to students and their families on campuses that don’t have law schools.
Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a loan program in which undocumented students in the UC and California State University systems can borrow directly from the schools, since they’re not allowed to take federal loans.
But students say any kind of loan is risky, given that their protection from deportation is by administrative policy and could thus be revoked at any time. They would rather see more resources for grants, scholarships, internships and work study. And the legal services center has only 3½ attorney positions servicing numerous campuses, students say.
Underscoring the summit’s purpose, the UC Berkeley School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic released a report Thursday describing the difficulties undocumented students face. Most are from low-income families in which close relatives still fear deportation, and because the students are undocumented they can’t seek the federal financial aid that helps most students afford college, the report said.
Their dire financial situations mean almost three-quarters of Berkeley’s undocumented students report skipping meals or skimping on food, and more than 20 percent reported a period of homelessness or lack of stable housing while enrolled.
But money is tight throughout UC, as Napolitano and the Board of Regents threaten to raise tuition by 5 percent in each of the next five years unless Brown and the Legislature give the system more in next year’s state budget.
Judy Sakaki, UC’s vice president of student affairs, said the summit’s organizers tried to leave it to the undocumented-student coordinators on each campus to decide who to invite to the summit.
“The plan was to be as inclusive as we could … and we wish we could’ve had more students,” she said.
A bigger crowd, she said, might have interfered with the small-scale breakout session discussions around which the whole event is centered.
Justino Mora, 25, a political science major from UCLA, said dialogue means nothing without action and Napolitano must “follow through to implement these recommendations” that come from her meetings with students and conferences like this week’s, from providing more resources to improving communications with students and their families on and off campus.
Napolitano said she’s determined to win the undocumented students’ trust.
“The way you build bridges is you keep at it,” she said. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
