A Monday Brown Political Union debate about local law enforcement compliance with federal immigration officials was postponed until an unspecified date amid backlash from some students.
But BPU, a student group focused on hosting multi-partisan political discussions and events, said the postponement was a result of a misunderstanding of event requirements mandated by Brown’s Student Activities Office.
The public response was sparked by a statement from the Brown Dream Team — an organization supporting undocumented+ students at Brown. Undocumented+ commonly includes people who are undocumented, people with undocumented relatives, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and others.
After the event was announced, the Brown Dream Team took to social media to express their negative reactions to the event, calling it “inflammatory.”
Axel Martinez ’26, a co-leader of Dream Team, said that the group was “caught off guard” by the event announcement. “Quite frankly, we felt that it was in bad taste,” he added.
Martinez said that Dream Team leadership reached out to BPU requesting a meeting to voice their concerns. He said BPU responded, agreeing to meet, but Dream Team ultimately decided not to move forward with the meeting, feeling as though they wouldn’t be able to convince BPU leadership to make changes to the event.
Instead, Dream Team attempted to mobilize its members to attend the event.
“Our thinking was that if we came in and showed our perspective at the debate, maybe we could create some dialogue,” Martinez said.
Approximately an hour before the event was scheduled to begin, BPU sent an email to event attendees announcing the postponement, but did not address the negative backlash.
“We hope to have a rigorous dialogue on this question soon,” the email read.
In a statement to The Herald on behalf of the organization, BPU President Logan Tullai ’25 reiterated the group’s mission as “a student-run, multi-partisan forum dedicated to fostering intellectual growth and nuanced political engagement at Brown” through biweekly debates, speaker events and other dialogue-centered programming.
In the statement, Tullai emphasized the importance of open dialogue and maintaining spaces where diverse perspectives can be discussed respectfully.
Martinez stressed that in the current political climate, language and framing are crucial, taking issue with how the event was advertised.
Debates often include a “resolved” statement “that can be agreed upon or disagreed on to whatever extent the speaker wishes,” Tullai wrote. The resolved statement for the debate read, “local police should comply with federal immigration officials.”
“There are so many different ways you can title something like that,” Martinez said, referring to the resolved statement. “Wording matters when we’re talking about marginalized communities.”
On the first day of his new term, President Trump issued a series of executive orders related to immigration in an effort to target undocumented immigrants. Earlier this month, the Providence City Council introduced an ordinance to prohibit Providence police from sharing information about residents with federal immigration authorities.
Martinez clarified that Dream Team does not seek to shut down conversations on immigration enforcement. He said the group member’s presence at the event would allow the organization’s members “the opportunity to use our lived experiences” to inform the conversation.
Tullai wrote that BPU encourages “all people to share their perspectives from their lived experiences and not just rely on theory in their speeches and questions.”
Martinez also suggested alternate forms of dialogue when stating that “we can have community narratives where people sit down and it’s not a debate.”
Still, BPU is “looking forward to the rescheduled debate soon,” Tullai wrote.
Annika Singh is a senior staff writer from Singapore who enjoys rewatching Succession and cheating on the NYT crossword.
