Image credit: Reuters

The following statement was drafted and signed by members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), CUNY Delegate Assembly on November 8, 2018. The PSC CUNY union represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York. The Delegate Assembly is the leadership body of elected delegates drawn from the several different campuses of the University. Delegate members also donated more than $600 dollars to help La Izquierda Diario bring direct material aid to the caravan while in Mexico.

If you are a PSC CUNY member and would like to add your name to the statement contact James Hoff: [email protected]

PSC CUNY: We Support the Migrant Caravan

We, the undersigned members of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York, affirm our unconditional support for the workers and families of the migrant caravan currently travelling through Mexico to the United States, as well as our opposition to the xenophobic response of the US administration and the right-wing militias that have threatened their safety.

As teachers and employees of the City University of New York (the largest and most diverse urban university in the country), we are all too aware of the challenges and struggles faced by migrant children and their families. Many of our students are from South and Central America. Many of them, like the members of the caravan, have fled violence, persecution, and poverty, (often direct products of US policy and intervention) only to sometimes encounter more of the same. Many of them are undocumented immigrants, who live daily with the fear that they will be forced to end their studies or that their families will be jailed and deported. We know the extraordinary contributions that such students have made to our university and our communities, despite these hardships, and we know that our society is richer thanks to their hard work and intelligence.

Like workers and unionists everywhere we support the universal right of voluntary migration and asylum, and we condemn the violence of our militarized borders, which arbitrarily separate working people and pit them against one another. We support the rights of all immigrant workers to organize themselves everywhere they live and work, and we welcome them into our unions as well as our communities because their presence makes us stronger.

We demand that the members of the caravan be given immediate sanctuary and asylum in the United States and we commit ourselves and our union to helping them in their travels, to aiding those who make it to the US regardless of immigration status, and to complete non-compliance and non-cooperation with any and all attempts by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to find, detain, deport, or otherwise harm undocumented immigrants. Further, we call upon rank and file unionists everywhere to join us in our defense of the caravan and to urge their union leaderships to organize material and political aid and support for all migrants wishing to enter the United States.

Jay Arena, College of State Island

Andrew Battle, Hunter College

Marcella Bencirenni, Hostos Community College

Nina Conelly, Graduate Center

Carrie Conners, LaGuardia Community College

James Davis, Brooklyn College

Iris Delutro, School of Labor and Urban Studies

Francine Egger-Sider, LaGuardia Community College

Meg Kallaman Feeley, Kingsborough Community College

Susan Fountain, School of Professional Studies

Barbara Gabriel, PSC CUNY

John Gallagher, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Jeremy M. Glick, CUNY

Joan Greenbaum, Graduate Center (Retired)

Maya Harakawa, Graduate Center

Jennifer Harrington, Baruch College

James Dennis Hoff, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Carol Huong, City College

John Hyland, LaGuardia Community College (Retired)

Ines Carrera Junco, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Susan Kang, John Jay College

Peter Kolozi, Bronx Community College

Andrew Levy, Borough Of Manhattan Community College

Marvva Lilly, John Jay College (Retired)

Angeles Donoso Macaya, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Graciano Matos, City College

Cecilia McCall, Baruch College (Retired)

Patricia S. Rudden, New York City College of Technology

Jacob Segal, Kingsborough Community College

Youngmin Seo, Laguardia Community College

Tonya Shearon-Patterson, CUNY

Constantino Spanagiotakis, New York City College of Technology

Anh Tran, Graduate Center

Carly Smith, Baruch College

Travis Richard Sweatte, Graduate Center

Lynne Turner, Graduate Center

Rachel Yowens, Laguardia Community College

Elizabeth Hovey, CUNY

Juan Ferre, Graduate Center

Tatiana Cozzarelli, Graduate Center