UNLV group petitions university president in effort to quash sanctuary campus push

A group of conservative UNLV students has sent a petition to President Len Jessup asking him not to declare the university a sanctuary campus and to meet to discuss the issue.

The petition, circulated by UNLV Campus Conservatives, was started late last week in response to another group of students and faculty who have asked that Jessup protect undocumented immigrant students by declaring the campus a sanctuary. Jessup plans to meet Thursday with the pro-sanctuary students, whose recent letter to him also included three other demands related to protecting undocumented students.

“We think UNLV shouldn’t be in the business of deciding on how to apply the law in terms of which law enforcement requests should be complied with and which shouldn’t be,” said Campus Conservatives co-founder Jordan Escoto, who said he is of Hispanic descent.

“It’s something that could be abused,” he added. “University administration needs to respect rule of law. That’s the most important part to us.”

Escoto said his group, formed two months ago, plans to contact Jessup on Tuesday to ask for his acknowledgment of the petition and to arrange a meeting.

“I was kind of thinking we would have until January, when (President-elect Donald) Trump takes office,” Escoto said. “But this (meeting) puts a little more urgency into the whole thing.”

University spokesman Tony Allen on Monday reiterated the stance Jessup has taken on the topic, saying, “The president and members of the administration will continue to review and evaluate correspondence they receive on this topic.”

The petition has 158 signatures and asks Jessup and university administrators “to comply with federal immigration law and refrain from labeling our taxpayer-funded institution as a sanctuary campus.”

“There are a lot of groups on campus who are pro-sanctuary, and we’re just trying to get it on his radar that there are groups who are opposed to it,” Escoto said. “We’re not sure if he even knows that there’s opposition to it.”

Jessup was alerted to the petition by email, Escoto said.

“The laws of our nation should be abided by,” the petition said. “Refusing to follow federal immigration law as a university would constitute an unacceptable injustice to the taxpayers who finance our educations via federal grants and student loan assistance.

“Additionally, declaring UNLV a sanctuary campus without considering the plight of the undersigned would amount to a tyranny against those UNLV students who believe in the rule of law, and who oppose action by UNLV to disregard it.”

The pro-sanctuary campus petition, headed by associate professor Anita Tijerina Revilla, began circulating in November and was delivered to Jessup’s office with nearly 1,000 signatures Dec. 5.

Campus Conservatives co-founder Christina Zbejczyk said she believes her group’s petition will easily surpass 1,000 signatures once the word spreads.

“We didn’t think that their 1,000 signatures were that many,” Zbejczyk said. “Professors have more means to get it out there than we do because they have their names out in the community and can pass it around to their colleagues.”

Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.