Members from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Blk Pwr Coalition and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) held banners and spoke to passersby on State Street Wednesday night, demanding the University of Wisconsin-Madison officially become a "sanctuary campus” for international students.
The groups voiced concern over President Trump's failed attempt to limit the duration of status for international students of all degree levels to four years, which a federal judge blocked last week, and the increase of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids since Trump has taken office. Now, they want the university to agree to take no part in it.
The nationwide sanctuary campus movement petitions colleges to adopt internal rules to protect undocumented students from ICE. The groups want UW-Madison to become an official sanctuary campus and adopt specific policies and create resources to protect undocumented citizens and international students.
“The reality is that Trump’s administration and his policies around ICE… are things students do not want, and we don’t want a university that goes along with that,” Bradley Keenan, chair of the SDS, told The Daily Cardinal.
More than 7,000 international students attended UW-Madison in the 2025-2026 school year, the vast majority on F-1 or J-1 student visas. Trump threatened to remove 27 UW-Madison student visas in 2025, but they were eventually all restored.
“If they didn’t have those student visas, then they could be targeted by ICE,” Keenan said.
The groups demanded the university offer more resources for international students to feel protected from ICE, including a remote attendance feature that would allow students to attend class from the safety of their own home and the creation of an alert system, similar to the WiscAlert system, that would warn students of ICE's presence.
“Everywhere ICE goes, it’s a terror, and they’ve killed people,” Klara Schultz, a member of FRSO, told the Cardinal. “They’re ripping people from their homes and their families… We want [UW-Madison] to say with their mouths that they will protect students from ICE.”
Schultz said the students’ list of demands “includ[es] specific policies like ending private surveillance on campus.”
Flock, a private company that uses AI-powered automatic license plate readers (ALPR) which law enforcement has used to track citizens and make arrests, were introduced on campus in June 2025 with the intent of aiding law enforcement in solving crimes, according to the University of Wisconsin Police Department.
In July, UWPD announced they would not renew their contract with Flock but that they continue to support the use of ALPRs as they look for a new ALPR vendor.
“Yeah, get the Flock out of here,” Former Gov. candidate and Wisconsin State Assembly member Brett Hulsey, who was in attendance, told the Cardinal. But he also said there was a need for surveillance to enforce traffic laws for the safety of students.
The anger against Trump’s policies can be brought to the polls this September in the 2026 midterms, Hulsey said.
“We need to mobilize Dane County [UW-Madison] students to vote,” Hulsey said. “What you see around you [is] the largest single block of potential progressive voters.”
Keenan said Alex Pretti’s death by ICE agents in Minneapolis in January drove him to political action.
“A lot of the demands are calling for UW-Madison itself to have accountability in their role in making this campus safe,” Evan Epps, with the Blk Pwr Coalition, told the Cardinal. “They have that role, that ability, that power, and so we are calling on them to pull their weight in this matter of making our campus safe."
