Young Scientists Pledge: We Won’t Work for the Department of Defense Until the Camps are Closed

Last Friday afternoon, Never Again Action, an alliance of “Jews, Immigrants, and allies”, risked arrest by protesting outside of BlackRock, an investment firm and purported “major backer of ICE detention centers and prisons.” This action adds to a growing list of protests against businesses which support ICE, including the resignation of several GitHub employees in November.

Employees at Github aren’t alone in their protest, nor in their complicity. Every scientist that works for an organization which supports ICE is contributing to the traumatic effects of US immigration policy. That’s why some of the Department of Defense’s most promising young scientist have denounced them. These NDSEG fellows refuse to work for the Department of Defense until asylum seekers are treated humanely.

Though ICE is not part of the Department of Defense, the military does provide funding, troops, support staff, and construction materials to the border wall and ICE immigrant detention camps. The Department of Defense is supporting actions that lock up thousands of children and adults. Asylum seekers are separated from their families, denied adequate food and hygiene, sexually assaulted, and traumatized.

The Department of Defense also funds scientists. One source of funding is a fellowship that supports graduate students, The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowship. Fellows rely on this support to pay their income, tuition, and health insurance. However, we believe that it is our responsibility to denounce this human rights crisis. I am an NDSEG fellow, and I believe that our work and our talent should not be tainted by complicity with the cruel detention of children and adults.

I know that my peers agree with me, because I asked them to sign a petition where they refused to accept future job offers from the Department of Defense. 75 NDSEG fellows have signed the petition to date.

Some scientists may continue to work for the Department of Defense because they believe that the immigration agenda can be changed internally. However, the Department of Defense has not wavered in their support of ICE’s immigrant detention policies. Instead, the military has set up explicit connections between itself and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, to facilitate support for “enhanced border security.”

Several fellows were moved to sign because their parents were immigrants and they relate to today’s asylum seekers. One student, who wishes to be identified as an MIT aerodynamics researcher, explains that their mother was a teen refugee: “she spoke three words of English and had exactly zero dollars in her pocket.” However, after decades of hard work, she went on “to graduate from Yale Medical School, where her research during the HIV/AIDS crisis would directly save thousands of lives.” The MIT aerodynamics researcher asks if, under the current policies, “would my mother have been detained in a cage instead?”

Some who signed the petition are the descendants of refugees and Japanese internment camp survivors. NDSEG fellow Jacob Sacks says, “Treatment of those at the border” is all too reminiscent of the horror his “great-grandparents escaped in Eastern Europe during the early 20th century.” Sacks further explains, “I cannot be complicit in such actions through my affiliation with an organization which is actively supporting this human rights violation.”

Other fellows who signed the petition looked broadly at scientists’ duty to protest cruel immigration policies. Fellow Marvin Zhang explains: “I signed this petition because scientists – like others in a position of power and leadership – have a moral obligation to denounce injustice, whatever form it may take.”

The only way that we can oppose those responsible for US immigration policy is to deny them our talent, our training, and our complicity. It’s time for senior scientists to follow our lead. Refuse to work for the Department of Defense.