This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The University of Arizona is facing criticism for its to decision to criminally charge two students for protesting an appearance of US border patrol officers at a campus event.

Denisse Moreno Melchor, 20, and Mariel Alexandra Bustamante, 22, allegedly disrupted an appearance of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) representatives at the university on 19 March. Both students were issued misdemeanor citations for “interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution” and Melchor was also cited for “threats and intimidation”, a university spokesman said on Tuesday. The charges could carry up to six months of jail time.

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The decision by university police to bring criminal charges over a non-violent demonstration has sparked a backlash from lawmakers, free speech advocates and immigrant rights’ groups.

“They’re making an example out of these students, and they are trying to ensure nobody will follow in their footsteps,” Arizona state senator Martín Quezada told the Guardian. “The students should have the ability to express their opinions about what the government is doing,” he added.

The border patrol agents had come to campus for a presentation at a student club event. A group of protesters chanted outside the meeting, calling the agents “murderers” and shouting “murder patrol”, the Arizona Republic reported.

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Melchor and Bustamante were charged on Monday. The students did not immediately respond to requests or comment. They were cited at the university police department and released, the spokesman, Chris Sigurdson, told the Guardian. He said the students were not accused of any violence.

Robert C Robbins, the university president, opened his letter on the incident by saying he wanted to “reaffirm” the university’s “relationship” with CBP and said that the institution “has policies and protocols for behavior and expression”.

“The student club and the CBP officers invited by the students should have been able to hold their meeting without disruption. Student protest is protected by our support for free speech, but disruption is not,” he added.

He further wrote: “As a community of scholars, we need to be more thoughtful and deliberative in how we approach these issues.”

But it’s unclear how the student protests of the border patrol officers would have violated free speech protections.

State senator Quezada said he was disappointed to see the charges, and that the university was “doing a lot of harm to these young individuals who have bright futures ahead of them”.

In recent years, there have been increasingly heated debates about free speech and protest activity on college campuses in America. Universities have repeatedly come under fire for allowing far-right figures to speak on campus and then aggressively targeting counterprotesters.

Protests against border patrol have also escalated across the country surrounding Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, including the family separation crisis, the detention of children, deaths of migrants in custody and alleged sexual assaults by agents.

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The student government association at the University of Arizona said that the presence of uniformed agents was troubling for many students. Their appearance on campus “especially without warning was, is, and will always be immensely harmful to our … undocumented community”. The group’s statement noted that there are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) students on campus, referring to immigrants who were brought to the country as children and have protected status, despite Donald Trump’s efforts to end the Daca program.

The group said that on the same day agents were on campus, a Tucson family was arrested and detained by border patrol, just miles away from the university.

Arizona has seen aggressive prosecution of activists who support immigrants. Humanitarian volunteers who help migrants have faced criminal charges, including for leaving water in the desert for people crossing the border.

A University of Arizona Daca group praised the protesters in a statement, saying: “Their action is to be applauded and admired because they put their community before themselves and acted to protect us.”