Most people are aware of the controversial travel ban our new president enacted. The executive travel ban prevents even those with legal visas from entering the country if they are coming from a designated list of seven nations has been temporarily blocked. However there is still uncertainty about the future of this ban. Despite the ambiguity regarding not only the future of this executive order but also our country, one thing is clear: Brandeis does not stand behind this act and remains loyal to all its students.
Brandeis has offered up several communities discussions about US immigration, inclusion and more, immediately following the ban. This commitment to opposing the ban was reiterated when Brandeis, along with several other universities, filled a friend-of-the-court briefing, which urges a federal judge to create a more permanent barrier to the executive order. Furthermore the slides from a presentation regarding immigration have been made accessable to students through the following link.
This open opposition of the travel ban was, of course, needed and justified. At Brandeis, the ban has had deep emotional ramifications, especially considering the university’s deep roots in the Jewish community and the parallels drawn between policies enacted during the holocaust. As one student, Merrick Mendenhall ’20, stated “My grandmother came to the states when she was four, escaping religious persecution, and she had to deal with this immigration crisis. She was able to come in because of a family connection, but if she hadn’t she wouldn’t have been allowed in the country. But I do have relatives who didn’t make it into the country and died as a result. I don’t believe that Trump is like Hitler, but the communal feeling is similar and it’s unsettling and wrong that that feeling has returned.”