SGLC Hosts Know Your Rights Workshop Days After ICE Leaves Midwest

Almost a week after the Trump administration announced the end of their massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota, Loyola’s student government partnered with the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School to bring Know Your Rights training to students.

Two University of Chicago law students from the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic delivered a presentation Feb. 18 to a handful of students gathered in a Cuneo basement classroom. The presentation offered guidance on an array of topics related to immigrants’ rights and rights when interacting with federal immigration enforcement officers.

The University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic partners with Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, or ICIRR, on a number of projects including Know Your Rights trainings and a pair of guidance papers on how to respond to immigration enforcement actions.

Second-year Senator Jana Eid, Chair of the SGLC Justice committee, and first-year Senator and Justice Committee member Ahmed Khalaf said they had been working to bring a Know Your Rights training to campus since last semester. Eid said the demand for Know Your Rights presentations has been very high making it difficult to secure someone from the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic to give the training.

“We wanted to have this event earlier in the semester but, once again, it was really hard to get it going so this definitely took a while,” Eid said. “But, you know, they were here today and they seemed really excited to be here, and they’re also doing a lot of like frontline work so we were really happy to have them here as well.”

Nelson presented the first part of the slides provided by ICIRR covering a wide range of topics related to navigating immigration law and enforcement in today’s climate.

He said immigration agents may often attempt to use an administrative warrant to access private spaces, but legally are required to have a judge-signed warrant. If an officer is attempting to access your home, he said to ask to see the warrant either through the window or under the door to verify it was signed by a judge.

Nelson briefly mentioned the Illinois Trust Act and Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, which prevent state and local police from sharing certain data related to an immigrant’s status with federal law enforcement. He said the goal of these ordinances is to ensure all people, regardless of immigration status, feel safe reporting crime to the police.

After Nelson outlined the legal landscape surrounding immigration enforcement, Su discussed what students should do in high-stress encounters with authorities.

Su also said ICE currently has “a very liberal definition of obstruction of justice,” and emphasized people should be aware of their own sense of safety and to stay at whatever distance between them and immigration officers they feel is safe.

He recommended not interfering, but documenting immigration enforcement actions with videos or photos or shouting out reminders to the right to silence or an attorney to people being detained while still staying at a safe distance.

“There are also a lot of times where ICE hasn’t explicitly broken the law, they just have a very creative interpretation of the law, that isn’t per se illegal, right,” Su said. “And so that’s one thing and then there’s another thing where it’s just like, okay the most plausible understanding of the law is this, and they just haven’t done that.”

In addition to the training, Eid said the SGLC also put up Know Your Rights brochures around campus and in front of their office last semester.

Eid and Khalaf said they’re looking at potentially doing another event in March for Women’s History Month and focusing on divestment legislation.

“We live in Chicago, and this is a city where all people should feel welcome and included and especially at Loyola social justice is a big thing, on paper maybe,” Eid said. “So we definitely want to get more turnout for future events, and we’re trying to figure out ways to do that.”
Su and Nelson said they recommended students send a message to ICIRR’s Eyes on ICE text network so any potential sightings can be verified before they are sent out to the network. The Phoenix launched their own ICE tracker in October 2025 to verify and publish sightings in Rogers Park and Edgewater.