Immigration Arrest Protocols
Federal law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, operates on campus like other local, state and federal law enforcement when exercising a search or arrest warrant.
If federal officers seek to arrest an undocumented person in a public space of the university (outside, in a café, in the lobby of a building), they have the authority to do that and our goal should be to help keep things calm as the arrest is made.
However, if ICE officers seek to arrest someone in a non-public space of the university (a patient area/room, a student housing unit, a classroom, an employee’s office), ICE would have no federal or state authority to enter those spaces without a judicial warrant (an administrative warrant is not sufficient) and the university would have no legal obligation to facilitate such an arrest (e.g., by providing the location of an individual, by allowing entry into a private space, etc.).
In fact, HIPAA and FERPA would prohibit the university from providing information that would facilitate such an arrest of a patient or a student by, for example, identifying the location of a patient/student. Complying/enforcing these other federal laws would certainly not be considered obstruction/interference with an ICE arrest.
However, individual students, staff and faculty would run the risk of being charged with interfering with law enforcement if they intervene while officers make an arrest.