Administrators spoke about plans to address changes implemented by the Trump administration regarding international students and federal funding during an April 16 campus update meeting in University Hall.

Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Kathleen Kirleis described the impacts of federal funding freezes on the university. “In [Fiscal Year 2024], we were about a $550 million a year organization,” Kirleis said. “Of that, we have $137 million that came to us from federal funding sources. The largest by far is student financial aid at $97 million.”

The $97 million in financial aid includes $63 million of subsidized student loans and $29 million of Pell grants. Another $40 million in federal funding comes from federally sponsored research projects, Kirleis said.

The meeting came just two weeks after Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco announced that the Department of Homeland Security revoked the legal immigration statues of two current UMass Boston students and five others related to the university. During the meeting, Suárez-Orozco increased that number to a total of 11. Government lawyers announced in court the following week that the department is restoring the terminated statuses after hundreds of students across the country filed lawsuits challenging the move.

Suárez-Orozco said the university provides students affected by immigration status terminations with access to free legal assistance and counseling. “In each visa revocation case we provide guidance, advice and confirm that the students have received official documentation,” he said.

“Regarding contingency travel planning, the office of global programs is working with our impacted students to assist them as necessary. Emergency fund resources are being made available to support our affected students,” Suárez-Orozco added.

Provost Joseph Berger said the university is working to ensure academic continuity for students affected by the revocations. “Most of the students who have been affected, we knew before they knew, because we were monitoring and assessing to make sure that we could see in the SEVIS system,” Berger said, referring to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database. “We wanted to make sure that we could act instantly, even if the student didn’t know yet.”

“We have one student who is scheduled to graduate this May, and so we are making sure that that person is getting all the support so … even if they can’t be here because of what’s being done to them by the administration, that they are still going to earn their degree. That’s incredibly important,” Berger said.

Suárez-Orozco was met by applause as he held up a stack of legal documents to demonstrate the university’s attempts to push back on the Trump administration. “We are working hand in hand with the office of the UMass general council [and] the office of the attorney general of the commonwealth, the honorable Andrea Joy Campbell, in filing legal challenges against the unlawful actions of the administration,” he said.

“We have been at the forefront of providing material evidence… for an array of legal challenges filed by Attorney General Campbell,” Suárez-Orozco said. “You are welcome to peruse through all of the lawsuits and legal amicus briefs filed by our attorney general with material input from the UMass Boston campus.”

Administrators declined to show The Mass Media the documents immediately following the meeting. A spokesperson identified six cases in an email later that week. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is one of several plaintiffs in five of the cases, and filed an amicus brief in support of the sixth.

UMass Boston was mentioned by name in just two of the five cases’ complaints: Massachusetts v. Kennedy, which challenges canceled grants from the National Institutes of Health, and California v. Department of Education, a case challenging the termination of DOE grants intended to assist with teacher shortages. The amicus brief, filed in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, did not mention any specific UMass campus.

Suárez-Orozco had faced criticism for silence about the Trump administration’s threats to students and higher education, including from protestors who coordinated to repeatedly interrupt him and other speakers during the meeting.

“I understand that you will have to comply or have to go through a legal process — you are a university, right — however … I have to ask, how can you allow, even with a federal judge signing a warrant, allow any sort of ICE activity on our campus?” one protestor said. Interfering with the execution of a judicial warrant violates at least three federal laws, which carry maximum penalties of 1-10 years in prison per offense.

The same protestor criticized “the smallness of this room” and the university’s protest policy, which was updated last semester.

“Walk the walk. Walk the walk,” Suárez-Orozco said in response. “I hear you. Thank you — thank you for your comments … Walk the walk. This is what matters today. These are the legal mechanisms that tell a very, very powerful story about what our campus stands for.”

Berger responded that it is important to enforce the rule of law through court battles. “That doesn’t mean that’s all that we do, but that has to be a major point of emphasis, because if not — if we give up on the rule of law — if we give up on the very laws — in the system that actually protects … due process, the right to free speech, the rights that all of our citizens and our immigrants and our community have, then we’re actually helping the very thing we’re saying we’re trying to fight.”

Max Herschman, the vice president of the UMass Boston chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, interrupted to criticize the protest policy. “You talk about free speech on this campus and yet for the last year, free speech rights have been increasingly infringed upon,” he said. He also referred to the Africana studies department as having “been completely abandoned.”

Suárez-Orozco responded, “Thank you. Thank you for exercising your free speech right. Thank you very much. Let’s be clear: What the administration is doing is trying to sow chaos and division. We need to be united at UMass Boston.”

Berger responded to Herschman’s statement about the Africana studies department. “I’ll address one point, because I think it’s important to be factually correct on some things. Africana studies is incredibly important to this university. We have invested more in Africana studies than any other department over the last three years,” he said. “We have brought in new faculty members, a new chair. We have increased the budget. We have increased the staff. It is a priority, and, again, our actions demonstrate that Africana studies is important.”

Said Berger, “This is a tough fight, there is no question about it. There are many different ways to approach it, but we are putting every effort we can to build the strongest foundation to win what is going to be a long struggle.”