Rutgers University has welcomed a new program to teach the students and staff at the university about illegal immigrants in America and one of the administrators at Rutgers wants to make the program mandatory.
The workshop, titled the “DREAM Zone” program, is a three-hour class that originated at New York University and became known to Rutgers in April, according to The Daily Targum.
The program aims to instruct students on the difficulties that many illegal immigrants face in America. Throughout the program, students and faculty were shown the history of illegal immigrants as they traveled to America and legislation that has an effect on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students.
The senior program coordinator of undocumented student services at Rutgers, Yuriana Garcia Tellez, played a film detailing the struggle for illegal immigrant NYU students to pay for college. Garcia Tellez tells The Daily Targum that the main goal is to help humanize illegal immigrants so that program participants can better empathize with them.
Garcia Tellez, who personally believes that the program will have such a positive impact on the attendees, says she wishes to make the program mandatory for students attending Rutgers University.
In elaborating on why she believes it should be mandatory, Garcia Tellez said, “I think trainings like these are important to start conversations about how to begin supporting undocumented students in institutions, especially for people who are going into higher education.”
During the event, an attendee reports that participants were told to line up in rows and start a dialogue with what the American dream means to them. The goal of this was to start a larger discussion between American exceptionalism and “Americanism.”
Another session at the event discussed how people discuss illegal immigrants on social media.
Andrea Vacciano, a Rutgers University junior, spoke with Campus Reform and said that she opposes the program, particularly the social media portion.
“Checking how people talk about immigration sounds like an awful tactic to police speech,” Vacciano said. “I believe in treating undocumented students like people, but I think Rutgers should instead be encouraging them to get their papers.”
Rutgers University is no stranger to controversy. In 2016, Aviv Khavich, a junior at the institution and an Israeli immigrant, was fired from the school newspaper for using the term “illegal alien.”
In speaking with Campus Reform, Khavich said, “Rutgers should not be incentivizing breaking the law. Being an immigrant myself, having spent 13 years to acquire citizenship in the country, it’s incredibly demeaning for Rutgers to privilege these students over those who have obeyed the law their entire lives.”
@RealKyleMorris is a Yellowhammer News contributor and host of The Weekend Briefing that airs noon-2 p.m. Saturdays on 101.1 WDYE
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