Recent events involving a border patrol car around The Well at Sacramento State have left some students unnerved.

The incident was later clarified through an email from Sac State President Robert Nelsen explaining that the vehicle was there for training purposes. That did not, however, completely ease the tension for students who feared deportation and being uprooted from campus mid-semester.

It also did not help Sac State’s undocumented population’s peace of mind when an email was sent to all students under AB 540—an addendum that exempts some undocumented students from paying out-of-state tuition—from the Division of Student Affairs. A graduate student had been doing research and had access to all of their contact information.

Nothing about the email or the presence of a border patrol vehicle on campus is justifiable. Sac State presents itself as a campus that celebrates diversity, yet it is not a Safe Haven campus like San Francisco State.

It should also be kept in mind that Sac State qualified last year as a Hispanic-Serving Institution because it reached a threshold of at least 25 percent Hispanic students. There is also a Dreamer Resource Center on campus that offers help in looking for financial aid to those who cannot apply for regular aid through FAFSA because of a risk of deportation if the IRS found out a student is undocumented.

Keeping that in mind, why is Sac State not a Safe Haven campus? We have the diversity. Our resources are growing to support that diversity. Perhaps what we offer is simply not enough. That is for us as students to decide.

We should communicate with our administrators, both in student government and with faculty about any concerns we have.

If students were to start being deported abruptly, it would touch everyone’s lives to some extent and be to the detriment of the campus community. It is paramount for us to achieve recognition as a Safe Haven and to keep all of our Hornets in the nest.