Although Puerto Rico’s public and private universities are not exempt from operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to arrest immigrants, much of their communities would not know how to respond if such actions took place, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) found after surveying more than 40 professors, students and employees at 12 higher education institutions, who said they did not know whether their campuses had clear protocols in place to handle them.
Sandra Colón Pérez, spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said no immigration enforcement actions have been carried out at universities, but she could not guarantee that would not happen in the future.
“So far, I can tell you that we don’t carry out enforcement actions at schools, churches or hospitals. When it comes to universities, I wouldn’t dare say with certainty [that we wouldn’t intervene], although in principle they are also educational centers,” she told the CPI.
In February, ICE agents arrested Elmina Aghayeva, an Azerbaijani neuroscience student at Columbia University in New York, in her campus residence hall, a case that raised questions about agents entering university campuses without a judicial warrant. The incident ended with the student’s release after public pressure mounted.
Only two of the leading private institutions in Puerto Rico say they have guidance in place for handling such interventions: the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón and the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. In the case of the University of Puerto Rico, only its Medical Sciences Campus provided the CPI with a detailed step-by-step protocol that includes recommendations, legal grounds and its applicability across all buildings that make up the institution. The campus has 17 international students enrolled.
But the testimony gathered by the CPI suggests that, when such protocols do exist, they have not been widely shared and do not include details on how to handle the presence of immigration agents, as recommended by professional associations, civil rights organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups including the American Association of University Professors and the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
In addition, no university in Puerto Rico makes protocols or guidance related to ICE actions available on its website, the CPI found after reviewing the webpages of about 50 public and private institutions. Only the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus publishes a January 2025 circular listing support services for international students, faculty and researchers in response to “concerns over recent changes in immigration rules.”
According to Edward Maldonado, the student representative on the University Board, the Río Piedras campus has a “Guide for handling information and interventions involving staff and students in the event immigration officers arrive on campus.” The guide was presented to the Academic Senate in May 2025 and lays out the steps to follow in the event of operations, as well as changes in immigration law and recommendations for students participating in exchange programs.
However, Dyamar Cruz, president of the Río Piedras Campus General Student Council, said that beyond publishing the circular, campus administrators have not distributed that guide.
Although ICE has not taken any actions on campus so far, Cruz said the issue has come up at Academic Senate meetings because of concerns among international students who could be subject to federal surveillance and enforcement.
Maldonado, for his part, criticized the University of Puerto Rico’s Central Administration for failing to comply with a University Board certification that called for hiring a lawyer specializing in immigration matters who would be available to advise the campuses. As he explained it, there is currently no uniform institutional mechanism across the university system to handle these cases.
“Nothing has been carried out. The Central Administration limited itself to sending letters to international students with messages such as, ‘Stay safe and carry your documents’ during Miguel Muñoz’s tenure as president. Since Zayira Jordan Conde took over the presidency in June 2025, there has not been a single notice or direct outreach to international students,” Maldonado said.
The president of the University of Puerto Rico did not respond to the CPI’s request for an interview.
Cruz and other students say they have seen people they believe to be federal agents lingering around the Río Piedras campus.
“They’re seen mostly near the bus stops, where people who are heading to work gather, almost always along Barbosa Avenue,” she said, referring to the avenue that runs along the campus’s southern edge.
The student leader said she has seen them in unmarked vehicles, early in the morning, parked in areas used by employees and students — including international students — dressed mostly in black, wearing masks or ski masks that conceal their faces, along with dark glasses.
This year, the Río Piedras campus has 125 F-1 non-immigrant students, according to campus press director Mario Alegre Barrios.
María — a fictitious name used to protect her identity — is an international student at the Río Piedras campus. She said university administrators have not acted diligently to protect international students amid potential ICE interventions.
“There is no security of any kind when we move between campus and our off-campus housing,” she said. She explained that because student housing remains closed, most international students have to stay in nearby communities.
“The last briefing I saw from the university was on Sept. 17, 2025, and it basically explained what an international student has to comply with, what documents to have and how to keep them. They talked to us about the strategies agents may use when you enter or leave the territory, basic recommendations not to travel, not to leave the country,” the student said.
For her, studying in Puerto Rico under the shadow of ICE raises profound doubts about her decision.
“When people ask whether I recommend coming here, I tend to say no, because there are no guarantees. You don’t want to leave your country for something worse. Migration always comes with limitations, but when your safety is at risk and all they tell you is, ‘Carry your documents,’ with no safe transportation or other strategies, you start questioning everything,” she said.
Lack of awareness persists among university staff
Carlos De León, a representative of the Brotherhood of Exempt Non-Teaching Employees at the Medical Sciences Campus, said that campus protocol has not been shared with employees and that staff have received no guidance on how to apply it in work areas.
The same is true at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, where Frances Santiago, coordinator of services for international students and scholars, said she was informed in February 2025 of a procedure to follow if federal agents visit campus. According to Santiago, the university’s security office should be notified first, followed by the Office of the Dean of Administration, and the matter should then be referred to the Office of Legal Affairs, provided the agents present a federal warrant bearing the name of the person being sought.
However, that procedure has not been communicated to professors, employees or students at the Mayagüez campus, Wilberto Jiménez, spokesperson for the Mayagüez chapter of the Brotherhood of Exempt Non-Teaching Employees, Jocelyn Géliga, a professor in the English Department, and Taynary Delgado, president of the General Student Council at the Mayagüez campus, confirmed separately.
“To date, faculty members at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez have not received any written protocol. Usually, certifications, protocols and other regulations for faculty are circulated through institutional email. But so far at the Mayagüez campus, the faculty has received nothing on how to handle possible ICE interventions on campus or in our classrooms,” Géliga said.
“I have not heard that any protocol exists, much less that it has been shared with employees,” Jiménez added.
The Mayagüez campus has 386 international students with F-1 visas, Santiago confirmed.
“What should have happened is that we should have been briefed on these processes and on how to handle this kind of situation. I represent the students, and although I am informed about what is happening with ICE, I don’t know what the protocol is for handling those situations at the university,” said the president of the General Student Council at the Mayagüez campus.
A year ago, the administration of President Donald Trump revoked a federal memorandum that since 2021 had limited immigration enforcement activities in areas considered “sensitive,” such as universities, schools, hospitals and churches. With that rollback, ICE agents were authorized to conduct operations in those areas.
Last September, the Department of Homeland Security made clear that the Trump administration’s policy toward migrants would be enforced even if it meant entering any educational institution.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and educational institutions to avoid arrest,” Tricia McLaughlin, the agency’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said at the time.
More than a year after Trump’s action, immigration operations in Puerto Rico continue in areas near university campuses, including around Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Santurce and near the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus.
David Muñiz, president of the University of Puerto Rico Workers Union — which represents maintenance and grounds employees across the university system — said he does not know how staff should respond to the presence of federal agents, what steps they should follow or where they should turn in the event of an operation because they have not been briefed.
“We don’t know whether any protocol exists. We have not been included in meetings on the issue. Fortunately, this [these interventions] has not happened, but we need to stay alert and know what to do,” he said.
According to Muñiz, employees represented by the union are also often exposed on university grounds.
“Many of our employees also live in communities that are being targeted by ICE, which makes them far more alert and worried because they are out in the field, not in an office,” Muñiz said.
Colón, the HSI spokesperson, said immigration-status enforcement actions in Puerto Rico are not carried out at random.
“All of our agency’s outings are targeted operations that have already gone through an analysis by our internal intelligence unit. We know that we have a certain number of people in a given place who already have final deportation orders and who, for example, failed to appear before a judge; those kinds of people are in administrative violation,” she said.
She added that, in addition to court orders, the agency receives tips from sources. “We get a great many tips telling us, ‘I’m in such-and-such a place and there are a certain number of people here who don’t have a defined immigration status.’ That information is quickly sent to our intelligence analysts, it is verified, and from there we decide whether to carry out that operation,” she said.
From January 2025 through March 2026, ICE made 1,712 arrests in Puerto Rico, 89% of them involving men, Colón said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, those arrests were concentrated in 29 municipalities, primarily San Juan. Colón said most of the cases involved people from the Dominican Republic, with 1,289 arrests, followed by Haiti, with 102, Venezuela, with 63, Mexico, with 24, and Uzbekistan, with 23, among others.
Sagrado at the center of the operations
Nadiel Morales studies journalism at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. He is one of more than 1,000 students who live in university housing. He is also president of the Student Council and said he has fielded concerns from other students about ICE operations in Barrio Obrero and Santurce, near the university.
“Unlike other universities, because Sagrado is at the epicenter of these operations, it created a great deal of uncertainty and concern. The Barrio Obrero area is still facing those operations,” he said.
According to the institution, it currently has 241 international students from about 10 countries. Morales said that “most” of those students also live in housing provided by the university, which means “the concern is even greater.”
“We, the residents, were told that if we were approached or if there were an emergency and ICE came to carry out an operation at the university, we should not open the doors, in case they went to the student residence hall. We were also told not to answer anything, because the university would handle the situation by addressing the legal aspects,” the student said, referring to an assembly convened by the institution in February 2025.
According to Morales, no new guidance was provided either during the past semester or so far this academic year.
Protocols shared by Universidad del Sagrado Corazón state that students should refer any law enforcement official who appears on campus to the Office of Security or the Office of Compliance, Audit and Institutional Integrity so the university can verify that there is a legitimate and lawful request.
Students are instructed not to physically obstruct or interfere with the entry or actions of those officials.
Although the guidelines were shared with students, two professors at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón told the CPI, on condition of anonymity, that they have not received any guidance on them, either last year or so far this semester.
Concern also extends to universities outside the San Juan metropolitan area
Jessica Rodríguez, a social work professor at the Fajardo campus of Inter American University of Puerto Rico, said the operations directly affect two of her students.
“Right now, I have two international students, one from Venezuela and one from the Dominican Republic, who are studying on visas. One enrolled late at the campus because she had not been sent the information in time telling her she could remain in Puerto Rico,” she said.
The Venezuelan student, Rodríguez said, was very worried, and the professor had to contact her to make sure she would not miss the course. “We coordinated with the university, and that very week her authorization arrived, and she was able to rejoin,” she said.
“As for [ICE interventions], the instruction is to contact the Dean of Students’ Office immediately, which activates the assistance protocol. We have never had a raid on campus, but we do have a collaborative team that monitors policy changes and works on contingency measures in case that were to happen,” she said. Inter American University did not provide the protocol.
At the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico — which has campuses in Ponce, Mayagüez and Arecibo — administrators also say they recognize the importance of supporting their migrant community amid the threat of ICE interventions on the island.
Although he did not share a specific protocol, the university’s president, José A. Frontera Agenjo, said the institution requires that any order sought to be executed on campus be issued by the competent legal authority, which in most cases requires judicial involvement and must be expressly directed to the university.
Frontera Agenjo said staff members have been informed about these procedures and that the Office of International Relations remains in constant communication with the 15 students from Colombia, Spain, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela enrolled there this year. They have been offered guidance and meetings to ensure they know their rights and have the support they need, he said.
Ana G. Méndez University did not respond to the CPI’s request for information on whether the institution has guidance or a protocol for handling federal interventions on its Bayamón, Carolina, Gurabo or San Juan campuses. Two professors and two students, however — who asked not to be identified — said they had received no information.
Meanwhile, Isar Godreau, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey, said the issue of how to handle ICE operations on campus “should be more present” in discussions at her mountain-town campus.
She acknowledged, however, that last year the Academic Senate at that campus approved the drafting of an internal protocol to make the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey a sanctuary for international students. But so far, that guidance “has not been developed.”
Kensar Cruz, president of the General Student Council at the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao, also lamented that his campus has received no guidance on how to handle ICE raids, should they occur — an issue that, he said, causes significant stress among students. According to the social sciences student, people on campus don’t know for sure what they should do, where they should turn to or what steps they should follow if immigration agents arrive, even though it is an issue that is “constantly debated in class.”
“God forbid it, but if tomorrow ICE were to enter the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao, I can guarantee you there would be chaos,” he predicted.
LAI takes measures for athletes, but not for spectators at the Justas
Although the Interuniversity Athletic League of Puerto Rico, or LAI in Spanish — the organizer of the Justas Universitarias, the island’s annual intercollegiate sports championships — has since last year adopted measures to verify that international student-athletes competing have the documents required by federal agencies and has protocols in place to handle possible ICE interventions involving athletes, the organization acknowledges that it has no authority over operations involving the public.
“Security inside the sports venues is the responsibility of the participating institutions, which always bring representatives from their security divisions. Outside, it falls to the Puerto Rico Police and municipal police to handle control of everything else,” said LAI Commissioner Jorge Sosa. This year, the sports festival begins April 23 and concludes with the track and field championships on May 2.
The commissioner could not specify how many international athletes are competing this year or whether their participation has declined in response to the immigration policies pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
He said the organization operates on the assumption that international students competing in the Justas have already completed the relevant immigration processes and hold visas.
According to Sosa, the LAI’s protocols contemplate two main scenarios if an agency seeks to intervene with an athlete: an investigation or an arrest warrant.
“In the event of an investigative process, what we do is contact the dean of students at the athlete’s home university so that the institution, together with the student and the investigating agency, can address the matter,” he said.
If it involves an arrest warrant issued by a court, the response would be different.
“We cannot stop an arrest warrant, but even so, the Dean of Students is notified so that they are informed and, to some extent, can support the student-athlete in the situation,” he added.
This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.