As international students nationwide confront federal threats challenging their ability to study in the United States, certain provisions of the Graduate Labor Organization’s most recent contract have taken on newfound relevance in protecting students on visa status.
A section of the 2023 contract requires Brown to create an assistance fund of no less than $30,000 each year to help cover certain immigration-related legal fees for international graduate students. It also requires the University to make “reasonable efforts” to allow graduate student workers to continue their employment outside the country if they are denied entry. International graduate students are also entitled up to five paid days off to attend immigration-related proceedings.
The contract prohibits Brown from sharing graduate student visa holders’ personal information with federal authorities, unless required by law. The University has reiterated a similar policy for all Brown community members in recent weeks.
These provisions were drafted in anticipation of “a bad or worst case scenario,” GLO President Michael Ziegler GS said.
Chun-Tak Suen GS, GLO’s lead organizer for international students, said that the organization was “already thinking about another Trump term that is hostile to non-citizens” when drafting the provisions — which were ratified via GLO’s second contract in December 2023. Suen added that the idea for the protections came after the Trump administration’s later-scrapped plan to deport all international students who were not enrolled in in-person classes in 2020.
“We were worried that if Trump got elected he might put up some very drastic immigration measures, which we are experiencing right now,” Suen said.
While Ziegler said graduate students have typically used the assistance fund for visa fees, international graduate workers are now “looking at the fund a little bit differently.”
“The fund is available not just for helping renew a visa,” he said. “If you do get in some kind of difficulty with your status, it’s also there for that.”
In an interview with The Herald, GLO Vice President Victoria Antonetti GS said that the union also plans to meet with the University to ask for more money to be added to the fund — a process outlined in the contract.
The University did not respond to a request for comment.
Similarly, Antonetti said that the union plans to ask the University to host office hours with immigration lawyers each semester.
“When it comes to this contract, the overall picture is that the University and the union are quite on the same page,” Suen said.
But since President Trump took office, GLO has called on Brown to establish more protections for international graduate student workers.
At an April 3 rally, GLO organizers delivered a petition to Provost Francis Doyle containing demands they say are necessary to protect “vulnerable members” of the GLO community. The “GLO Petition for Community Protection” asked Brown to commit to challenging subpoenas for “any community member’s records” and destroy “captured or held surveillance, security camera or other footage of political speech on campus.”
The petition also asks the University to continue providing gender-affirming care and adopt a policy “stating that holding anti-Zionist beliefs, and expressing or advocating such beliefs, are protected rights and do not constitute antisemitism.”
In an interview with The Herald, Antonetti urged University administrators to offer more detailed, frequent communication to students affected by recent federal actions.
“I really think this is a time to be precise and to be consistently keeping us informed,” Antonetti said.
Ethan Schenker is a university news editor covering staff and student labor. He is from Bethesda, MD, and plans to study International and Public Affairs and Economics. In his free time, he enjoys playing piano and clicking on New York Times notifications.
Emily Feil is a senior staff writer covering staff and student labor. She is a freshman from Long Beach, NY and plans to study economics and English. In her free time, she can be found watching bad TV and reading good books.
