A.S. resolution upholds F-1 students’ free speech, among visa revocations and ICE crackdowns on “illegal ideas”

Valeria Castillo, a 20-year-old Mathematical Economics major at Santa Monica College (SMC) and candidate for President of the Associated Students (A.S.) spoke on how to better help homeless students at SMC and provide more resources at the Corsair’s annual Associated Students (A.S.) Election Forum on Thursday, March 26, 2025, at Cayton Center, at SMC, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Jake Crandall | The Corsair).

To defend freedom of speech, a protection ordained by the First Amendment, one Santa Monica College (SMC) student is utilizing the same amendment’s freedom of petition. Their legislative initiative, “Protecting Free Speech in Higher Education,” condemns federal undermining of free speech and calls on the SMC administration to recommit to protecting F-1 students.

The resolution is pending approval from the Associated Students (A.S.) Board of Directors.

“Protecting Free Speech in Higher Education” explicitly redresses “recent tactics” of the federal government that limit free speech, including withholding funding, revoking student visas, and dismissing faculty on the basis of unfavorable ideologies. The resolution also states that A.S. will protect free speech and academic freedoms, and encourage dialectical exchanges.

“My resolution is mainly about freedom of speech, but it does touch upon the issue with F-1 students being targeted… for speaking up on social issues,” said A.S. Director of Equity and Diversity Valeria Castillo, who penned and petitioned the resolution, and is an F-1 student herself from Peru.

“The suppression of free speech threatens critical thinking, intellectual growth, and students’ ability to engage in civic life,” reads a document also written by Castillo that summarizes the resolution into key principles.

Castillo’s legislative initiative also commits A.S. to collaborating with local legislators and advocacy organizations to address issues involving free speech on campus.

“There’s a lot of rapid changes with the administration and these are things that are unforeseen, that we haven’t ever seen before, that have fundamentally changed how we see our democracy,” she said. “What I didn’t see is not sufficient backlash or not sufficient people talking about it.”

In recent weeks, federal agencies have openly professed intentions of criminalizing ideologies, which legal advocates have argued contrasts the free speech clause of the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment. On April 10, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shared a post on X declaring the agency’s intent to enforce “400+ federal laws to ensure public safety and national security.”

The post’s accompanying graphic sent shockwaves through its viewership, reading: “If it crosses the U.S. border illegally, it’s our job to stop it. People. Money. Products. Ideas.”

Quickly swarmed with backlash, including from U.S. congresspeople, the graphic was rescinded and reposted, the word “Ideas” replaced with “Intellectual Property.” But ICE’s notion of an illegal “idea” shares a spot on the nation’s timeline with federal officials brazenly imposing status changes on immigrants who engage in “disruptive protests” on the grounds that they “undermine… foreign policy objective(s).”

On the same day, April 10, Castillo submitted “Protecting Free Speech in Higher Education,” along with a full petition of 50 student signatures, to SMC’s Office of Student Life. If the office verifies the signatures, the Board of Directors will either pass the legislation or send it to a student body vote in the next general election, which would be the upcoming Special Election during this semester that will fill 2025-26 Board vacancies.

“I strongly believe in my resolution, so I think it should pass with no issue,” Castillo said.

Inside Higher Ed, a news publication that reports on higher education institutions, has tracked over 800 changes to the legal statuses of students on student visas in the U.S. in recent weeks, as of April 11. Most of the colleges have not disclosed reasons behind the status changes, though some have confirmed that several of the terminations were the direct result of those students’ alleged involvement in pro-Palestine protesting.

Castillo began presenting the legislative initiative to students at the end of March and early April, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed terminations of over 300 student visas, and before the nine revocations of F-1 visas belonging to SMC students were announced earlier this week. However, even then, she expressed feeling it was a “matter of time” before SMC was targeted.

Castillo was able to snag all 50 needed signatures from SMC students within three days, which she credits with the widespread student desire, often unfulfilled, to get involved in the legislative process, with no obvious outlet to do so.

“A lot of people are hearing about it, but they don’t know what they can do… We may seem so far removed, but that’s just the way things go,” Castillo said. And the speed at which F-1 students’ difficulties have accelerated is unbelievable, she said.

“I think it’s very important that our college states that it’s against this, and stands up for its F-1 population that is being threatened right now, since… we deserve to be protected as well, or to feel protected, at least,” Castillo said.

A tutor in the Math Lab, Castillo has found that an overwhelming majority of her co-workers are also international students. Since F-1 students must take at least nine on-ground units per semester to maintain their status, they’re often highly involved on campus and might become campus leaders, such as in A.S.

“Since we are required to take classes on campus, we tend to be more involved, so that could be why,” she said.

Castillo said that while F-1 students are significantly responsible for the thriving of SMC campus life, they are often subject to difficulties at SMC, like high tuition costs, forced reliance on on-campus employment, and earning only minimum wages at those jobs.

One academic year of at least 12 units per semester, a requirement to maintain F-1 status, poses a tuition cost of $11,232 a year at minimum for international students. Additional surcharges along with mandatory health insurance adds up to $13,729 at minimum per academic year.

Also, she said, as an F-1 student, freedom of expression is constantly in doubt.

“You’re always kind of walking on eggshells because you don’t want to make a decision that would (endanger) your visa,” she said. “Before this administration I’d never consider being deported just for speaking out, but now myself, I feel threatened.”

In addition, federal legislation limits off-campus employment in many circumstances for F-1 students, which also limits avenues for those students to engage in politics, she said. This also narrows opportunities for extracurriculars, for fear they could be mistaken for jobs. 

“We have to be very careful and we have to think twice, because we don’t want them to think that we’re working illegally here,” she said.

Though her tenure with A.S. government is nearing a year, Castillo was more immediately inspired to act legislatively by the resolution, sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), that declares Palestinian solidarity, condemns so-called “Israeli apartheid,” and passed with an overwhelming majority in the recent A.S. general election.

“If they were able to do it, why wouldn’t we or any other student be able to put out something that they’re passionate about?” Castillo said. “I would also motivate any other student who’s considering doing it to do it, because the more different opinions we could get, I think that’s the best for our system, to work democratically.”

If or when her resolution passes, Castillo plans to speak before SMC’s highest governing body, the Board of Trustees, and state exactly how she intends the resolution to be executed.

“I would like for them to speak out or put out a statement, a press release in particular, stating their position of disagreement with the tactics that we are seeing limiting free speech that we have seen in particular at elite institutions such as Columbia,” she said.

To assuage fears afflicting F-1 students, Castillo “would remind them that we can find power in our collective strength.”

“One international student may not be able to make a lot of change, but if we unite our population, we are in fact one of the most predominant populations in our campus across higher education. Like, F-1 students are responsible for a significant part of the income that colleges receive,” she said. “So we do have a voice and we do have a stake on this. And as long as we rely on each other for support, and combine our voices to produce a unified message of resistance, we are going to be fine.”