Maria Mejia, Elon professor of philosophy, said dispelling myths on misinformation regarding Immigration Customs and Enforcement and immigrant rights is even more important right now. Mejia works with the grassroots organization Siembra NC, which provides training to people on what to do when interacting with ICE and has a hotline people can send concerns into.
Siembra is hosting an event at 6 p.m. May 2 in Sankey Hall 308 to provide a community preparedness training for students, faculty and staff, and community members. Previously, Mejia was involved with another educational session on April 18.
“There's a lot of fear and kind of fear driven misinformation that can sometimes circulate on social media and things like that, where people see something that might be suspicious, or they see law enforcement, they might think that it's ICE, and then this kind of gets spread to the community, and that creates fear,” Mejia said.
Under the Trump administration, ICE has significantly increased the amount of arrests it is making. In the first 50 days of Trump’s presidency, ICE made 32,809 arrests. In 2024, ICE made 33,242 for the full year. Previously, immigration enforcement was not allowed to occur in “sensitive locations,” including schools and churches. As of Jan. 20, President Donald Trump rescinded this policy, allowing ICE to take enforcement actions in these spaces.
“That kind of fear tactic can keep people from actually going to school or going to places where they need to go in order to live their lives,” Mejia said. “What Siembra does is they have a hotline that folks can send these kinds of concerns to.”
Mejia said she got connected with Siembra through some organizers in Alamance County, and she said they were one of the only people who were trained to know what to do regarding ICE. Because of a lack of information in the area, she contacted Siembra to plan an event at Elon.
“I've just been hearing from students that they are concerned about things that are happening throughout the country and that they wanted to get more information and maybe have tools of how they could get involved,” Mejia said.
She said as a philosophy professor, while conversations specifically regarding immigration and national politics are not directly related to her courses, her classes do focus on the connection between the university community and how students can fit in with the broader community outside of campus.
“I think that's important, to kind of create spaces to connect on maybe a more human, personal level, in our campus as well at this time,” Mejia said.