Seven University of Maryland student groups are participating in a “May Day of Action” on May 1 to stand in solidarity with immigrants and workers at this university.
At 3 p.m. Monday, students will march to the administration building in an attempt to present a list of at least nine demands to a member of the university administration, said UMD Socialists President Brendan Sullivan.
The UMD Socialists and Young Democratic Socialists are the main organizers of the event, Sullivan added.
Students for Justice in Palestine, Our Revolution, Student Labor Action Project, Prison Resistance Project and the Graduate Student Government are also taking part.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. there will be a rally on Hornbake Plaza with tables representing sponsor groups, music and an open mic.
Sullivan said he expects about 200 people to show up Monday, including the members of the groups involved.
“It’s supposed to be open to anybody who just wants to stand in solidarity with immigrants, immigrant workers, student workers and anything of the sort,” said Our Revolution Director of Outreach Michael Brennan, a sophomore government and politics major.
The demands are “like a demonstration of power,” he added.
There are currently nine demands, with the potential for more to be added, Sullivan said. They include demands for this university’s administration to make this university an official sanctuary campus, for all university workers to have the right to form a union with collective bargaining rights, and for the administration to publicly denounce hate speech and attacks, particularly those targeted against the LGBTQIA community and communities of color.
Our Revolution President Maille O’Donnell, a sophomore environmental science and policy major, said a sanctuary campus is a status that students should be pushing for because a sanctuary campus would show that the administration stands with undocumented students.
“It’s important to also emphasize how much immigrants help grow the economy, which goes against the Trump narrative. We’re trying to fight that [narrative], and emphasize their role and power in the country,” O’Donnell said.
Last November, ProtectUMD, a coalition of 25 student organizations, sent a letter to administrators outlining 64 demands for new programs, resources and initiatives to serve marginalized student populations. After reviewing those demands, university President Wallace Loh wrote in an email response that the coalition’s demand to make this university a sanctuary campus “unnecessary.” Though this university is not labeled a sanctuary campus, Prince George’s County has protocols to protect undocumented immigrants from federal authorities.
[Read more: ProtectUMD demands]
John Dean, the co-chair of Young Democratic Socialists, said the day’s organizers are not calling for a strike on the campus.
“What we want to do is kind of join together the different activist groups that are ready to stand with the people that are on our campus and in our community that are now facing a lot of fear through ICE or different hate speech against them, [such as] the graffiti by Stamp that said ‘Deport Dreamers,'” Dean, a senior environmental science and policy major, said.
On April 18, members of the former student group Terps for Trump chalked pro-deportation and President Trump messages in front of Stamp Student Union. Messages included phrases such as “Deport Dreamers,” “Build the wall,” “Trump 2020” and “MAGA,” an abbreviation for “Make America Great Again.”
[Read more: Terps for Trump chalking outside Stamp advocated building a wall and deporting DREAMers]
This university has 20 students covered under Maryland’s DREAM Act, which grants in-state tuition to undocumented students. As of fall 2016, this university also had 113 students under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows certain undocumented immigrants to work and study in the U.S. in two-year increments.
While DACA is currently protected under Trump’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security began rolling out plans in February for a wider crackdown on people coming into the U.S. illegally, The Diamondback reported earlier this month.
“Anything that has come out of the Trump presidency, I feel like it’s snowballed into a fear that a lot of people have, and we’re trying to counteract it,” Dean said. “We’re trying to stand up in solidarity and say ‘Hey, you can’t do that.’ We care about everyone in this country, and abroad even. Everyone has the right to be here.”
The history of May Day dates back to the Chicago Haymarket riot on May 4, 1886, when workers were fighting for an eight-hour work day. Inspired by this movement, socialists and unionists worldwide designated May 1 as an international workers’ holiday, known as “May Day.”
Senior history and secondary education major Shane James, the secretary for Students for Justice in Palestine, said May Day is a fitting combination of worker and immigrant rights.
“May Day, workers’ rights, is at the same exact time as the struggle for immigrant rights. And [immigrant rights have] always been at the forefront of the fight for workers’ rights,” James said.
