Just over a year after Florida International University police signed a 287(g) agreement with ICE, an organization formed to contest the move filed suit against the university.
The suit stems from a March 13 anti-ICE protest during a public event with FIU President Jeanette Nuñez and retired pro baseballer Alex Rodriguez.
Students stood up in the audience, turned around and faced the crowd while donning shirts urging, “ICE OFF FIU.”
“Despite claiming ‘Freedom — of thought and expression’ as a core value in its mission statement, FIU could not let the ICEBreakers’ silent exercise of free expression go unpunished,” the suit filed Tuesday in the federal Southern District of Florida alleges.
Per the lawsuit, the students left the auditorium on their own, the protest lasted less than five minutes, the students were silent, and the conversation on stage continued throughout.
FIU charged the students with misconduct, saying they violated the school’s “expressive activities” policy.
The university, to “protect health, safety, and welfare and prevent disruption of university activities,” prohibits inside university buildings “protests, parades, marches, picketing, demonstrations, and other similar expressive activities,” per the policy.
The university is requiring the students to produce two-minute videos of themselves reflecting on the regulation and what it means. If not submitted by Sept. 4, they will be barred from registering for classes or receiving diplomas. They have received written reprimands from the university, too.
According to an email exchange between FIU administrators included in the lawsuit, they did not believe the protest disrupted the event.
The students want to continue protesting, but allege this situation has chilled their speech and that they “have suffered and continue to suffer emotional distress and other damages, all to their detriment.”
The students are asking the court to deem the FIU policy unconstitutional and award compensatory and punitive damages.
FIU did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
287(g)
Last year, Florida law enforcement agencies across the state, including at state universities, signed 287(g) agreements deputizing their officers as ICE agents.
According to an ICE database, no other state universities outside Florida have signed 287(g) agreements.
“Florida’s universities’ eager enlistment is an aberration nationwide,” the suit states.
FIU Police Department Chief Alexander Casas told faculty last year, in explaining his rationale for participating with federal officers, that he wants his department to have a say in how immigration enforcement goes at the South Florida institution designed to be internationally facing.
Nuñez and Casas held a meeting with faculty who had concerns or questions about the agreement in April 2025.
“Since then, FIU’s enlistment in the federal immigration enforcement regime has sparked intense debate on campus. Through assemblies, town halls, faculty meetings, petitions, and other fora, members of the university community have discussed this issue and expressed their opposition to FIU’s actions,” the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, ICEBreakers “caries out its mission by educating the university community about FIU’s collaboration with ICE and by galvanizing community members to join in direct actions to protest that collaboration.”
“Despite the lack of disruption the silent demonstration caused, FIU Police investigated the protest, and, ten days later, on March 23, 2026, referred the case to the Office of Student Conduct & Academic Integrity (SCAI) for consideration of further action.”
The students are represented by the ACLU of Florida and Community Justice Project.
“ICE has no place at any university, especially one that calls itself a haven for international students,” Andrew Caro, one of the seven charged students, said in a news release. “Inviting federal enforcement on campus goes against everything this university claims to represent — and instead of listening to students’ real concerns about this, they punished us.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
