A petition calling on the administration to investigate the possibility of making Brandeis a sanctuary campus began circulating soon after the results of the presidential election were released.

Addressed to University President Ronald Liebowitz, Provost Lisa Lynch and Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel, the petition asked for immediate investigation into “the possibility of our campus serving as a sanctuary for students, staff and their family members who face imminent deportation,” according to the petition.

The petition cited President-elect Trump’s plan for his first 100 days in office to deport millions of immigrants and abolish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as a reason for Brandeis to become a sanctuary campus.

The petition also referenced a 2011 Homeland Security memo as a reason for Brandeis to designate themselves a sanctuary. The memo set forth a policy for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers that “is designed to ensure enforcement actions do not occur at nor are focused at sensitive locations such as schools or churches,” the memo said.

These enforcement actions include arrests, interviews and searches, according to the memo. However, the policy does not prohibit these actions entirely; enforcement actions should not occur unless pressing circumstances exist or prior approval for the action has been obtained, the memo stated.

Brandeis’ petition’s call for action urged the university to “develop a protocol for making itself a sanctuary campus” and to “take all possible steps to uphold the promise of DACA.”

The administration was also encouraged to “ensure that university mental health services are equipped with mental health professionals who have cultural competency in working with politically marginalized communities and trauma-related issues of familial separation and the chronic threat of deportation,” the petition stated.

Although the term sanctuary campus is not universally defined, Brandeis already has policies in place that achieve some of the goals listed in the petition. “While no one knows what will happen in the future, and although we join many universities in studying what the term ‘sanctuary campus’ means, we wanted to reaffirm the practices Brandeis University already has in place,” Liebowitz said in an email to the Brandeis community on Nov. 17.

These practices include not permitting immigration enforcement on campus without a warrant or demonstration of pressing circumstances, not allowing Brandeis police to act on behalf of federal agents in the enforcement of immigration laws and not releasing immigration status information unless mandated by a court order to do so, Liebowitz said in the email.

Liebowitz has also signed his name on a “Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and our Undocumented Immigrant Students,” which, at the time of publication, has been signed by 441 college and university presidents.

Gannit Ankori, professor of art history and theory and chair of the School of Creative Arts Council, advocated to make Brandeis a sanctuary campus. She wears a safety pin “as a symbol of my solidarity with anyone who feels unsafe or alone,” she said in an email to The Brandeis Hoot. “My conviction is that we must do EVERYTHING to protect and nurture all our students and everyone on campus … Brandeis needs to actively fight against any form of racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, sexism and all other forms of discrimination,” she said.

Students at colleges and universities across the United States have been circulating similar petitions to make their own campuses sanctuaries, but that could mean different things to different people, according to a Chronicle article published on Nov. 17.

New Haven, Conn., is already considered a “sanctuary city,” and Yale University was just declared a sanctuary campus within that city, according to Carly Gove, a student at Yale University. New Haven’s status as a sanctuary means that the New Haven police will not inquire into anyone’s immigration status during questioning or if they have reported something to the police, according to Gove. “Basically the only way someone in New Haven can get deported is if there’s an ICE raid,” she said.

Yale’s status as a sanctuary campus means that “Yale won’t actively collude with ICE or give up any information on students without an explicit warrant … this also means the university is willing to offer legal representation to students should they get entangled in any immigration battles,” Gove said.

Xavier Maciel, a student at Pomona College, began a Google spreadsheet to keep track of all the institutions of higher education that have started sanctuary campus petitions. At time of publication, the spreadsheet listed 149 schools.

Each entry on the spreadsheet includes a link to the specific school’s petition, states who is able to sign the petition (some schools are only allowing those affiliated with the school to sign their petition, while others will let anyone sign), the state the school is located in, and any updates, progress or statements made by the school. The spreadsheet also directed visitors to a petition guide/template in case schools needed help starting a petition.

Brandeis’ petition had 988 signatures at the time of publication. The petition was last updated with names on Nov. 18.