Underwood, Cortland mayor join NIU anti-Trump rally

DeKALB – A large crowd turned out this week to protest the federal government’s decisions to revoke visas from five international students at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

Among attendees at Wednesday’s on-campus rally was Cortland Mayor Mark Pietrowski, who works in the College of Engineering at NIU. Pietrowksi said he believes revoking student visas without due process is harmful to higher education, the integrity of the nation’s immigration systems and the reliability of legal processes.

“In engineering and across our NIU campus, international students are not just a footnote,” Pietrowski said. “They are leaders in research, student organizations, contributors toward classrooms and members of our community. Losing them means losing ideas, innovation and perspectives that fuel our institutions. It means damaging America’s reputation as a destination for learning and collaboration and hurts our higher education system.”

Dozens of protesters were seen chanting in front of Founders Memorial Library.

Some hoisted signs into the air, including one with the words “Education, Not Deportation“. One protester wrote “Hands Off Our Students,” while another wrote “Immigrants Make America Great.”

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Attendees hold signs and cheer Wednesday, April 23, 2025, during a rally to support Northern Illinois University’s international students, faculty and staff, in front of Founders Memorial Library at NIU in DeKalb. (Mark Busch)

Organizers said Wednesday’s on-campus demonstration was meant to drum up support for NIU’s international students and faculty who have come under attack.

An NIU spokesperson confirmed the week of April 11 that the students lost their visas. No one has yet said publicly why the five students lost their visas. It also has not been disclosed if the students are no longer on campus, though university officials said they’re providing support for those impacted.

Kerry Ferris, an associate professor of sociology at NIU, read a statement on behalf of an anonymous colleague during the demonstration.

“‘I fled from an authoritarian country, moved among countries, applied for this job at NIU and got it,” Ferris read from the statement. “The U.S. chose me as much as I chose the U.S. This country invited me as I have something to contribute to society. Suddenly, my family and I now do not feel welcomed. Instead, I dare not go outside Illinois, let alone travel abroad for research and conferences. People, like me and our families, now live in fear.’”

“We can’t be quiet in this situation. You have to express outrage.”

—  Marc Falkoff

Immigration attorney Sara Dady pointed to top lawyers from across the country who have come under attack in recent months.

In February and March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order against law firms as a way of extracting concessions from entities to avoid legal challenges he may face, The Associated Press reported. The law firms have argued the president’s actions are unconstitutional and asked a judge to block the orders.

“It is no mistake that this current regime is targeting lawyers and law firms,” Dady said. “Lawyers are the ones who know the Constitution. Lawyers are the ones that know that there are more amendments than just the Second Amendment. I see the First Amendment here today, and I see the Fifth Amendment here today, due process of law.”

Actions taken by federal officials are part of a larger plan by Trump and his administration to crack down on immigration and noncitizens, federal authorities have said.

The federal government has in some cases alleged students violated visa rules or posed a threat to national security. Those opposed to Trump’s actions, including lawyers representing other university students who’ve had their visas revoked, have argued the government has failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove their claims, The AP has reported.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, made an appearance at the NIU rally. She said she believes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been acting without due process on the president’s orders.

“They’ve been identifying these students through AI programs, and they’ve been sending ICE to campuses across the country all without transparency and due process,” Underwood said. “We’ve seen Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants, once limited to undocumented migrants or visa overstays but now according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, they are initiating deportation proceedings because of these students ‘opposition to American foreign policy’. This doesn’t sound like the American dream to me.”

Dan Montgomery, president at the Illinois Federation of Teachers, said he believes recent efforts by the Trump administration are designed to single out higher education institutions.

“All tyrants in history have a few things in common,” Montgomery said. “One of them is they attack bastions of education. They don’t want an educated populace. That’s what’s happening here with Donald Trump’s attacks on higher education, on students, on faculty, on international students, and on the structure of higher education.”

Marc Falkoff, professor of law at NIU, said he wanted to remind demonstrators that they’ve seen what it’s like when Democracy is about to die.

“We’ve seen this story play out before,” Falkoff said. “We’ve seen it in Hungary. We’ve seen it in the Philippines. We’ve seen this aggrandizement of executive power in Putin’s Russia. We have a president today who is ambitious and who seeks to amass power. And we have a Congress that is too scared to restrain. So, we can’t be quiet in this situation. You have to express outrage.”