CIE Response to the January 2017 U.S. Executive Order on Immigration

 

The students, faculty, and staff at the Center for International Education (CIE) at UMass Amherst resoundingly oppose the Executive Order on Immigration that temporarily suspends travel from seven majority Muslim countries and selectively denies entry to Syrian refugees.

 

This Order is antithetical to our shared values of diversity, inclusivity, and religious pluralism and we understand this Order to be a direct attack on our students, our staff, our faculty, our community, and our fellow citizens around the world. CIE stands for equality, kindness and compassion and we stand against the oppression, suppression and repression of people, their stories, ideas and beliefs.

 

CIE has alumni and faculty who have worked in and continue to play active roles in education programming in many of the seven countries targeted in this Executive Order: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. CIE has always welcomed and will continue to welcome people from these targeted countries and from any country around the world. We know that the complex issues in international education require responses grounded in thoughtful debate, discussion, and evidence that represent a diversity of lived realities, experiences, approaches and thinking. We remain committed to fostering this kind of deep engagement with ideas and action because doing so is central to learning.

 

Our Center is proud to have a diverse student body that includes many domestic students, international students, immigrants, green card holders, and dual nationals. We fully commit and promise support to all students, staff, and faculty affected by this Executive Order and fully support the Chancellor’s statement of the position of UMass Amherst with regard to the Order. CIE and its worldwide community of graduates will actively resist both the rhetoric and the substance of the Order.

 

Students, Faculty & Staff of CIE