VOLUME 110, ISSUE NO. 16 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2026
Tracking ICE
Freshmen create website mapping immigration incidents COURTESY ABBY MANUEL AND JACK VU / THRESHER The website icemap.dev was created by Abby Manuel and Jack Vu to monitor locations with news coverage related to immigration enforcement.
RUBY GAO
THRESHER STAFF Abby Manuel and Jack Vu noticed in April 2025 that some of the kids in the weekly classes they volunteered with had stopped showing up. They realized an uptick in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Houston had caused their families to fear leaving the house.
Talarico to visit ICE facility, Rice talk postponed LINA KANG
THRESHER STAFF James Talarico, a Texas state representative running for U.S. Senate, canceled a Rice event scheduled for Jan. 28 in order to visit an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. The event was organized by the Rice Young Democrats and would have included remarks by Talarico followed by a meet and greet. Rep. Talarico has postponed his visit to Rice to a later date which has not been announced. Talarico’s last-minute decision to visit the ICE detention center comes after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-yearold Minneapolis resident, by ICE agents over the weekend. Last week, the autopsy report of a man who died in an El Paso detention center classified the man’s death as a homicide. There are 26 immigration detention centers in Texas, according to the Texas Immigration Law Council. It is unclear which center Talarico plans to visit.
In response, Manuel and Vu created a website that tracks ICE activity across the U.S., a tool that has been featured in many activist resource guides. “Masked men from ICE showed up one April morning, and it all stopped. The kids couldn’t leave their homes. Our weekly classes stopped,” said Vu, a Sid Richardson College freshman. “Week after week, I would hear word of another family who left without a word. We made
[the map] a few weeks later.” The website, icemap.dev, tracks ICErelated news incidents in individual counties, as well as immigrant detention facilities with documented health and security inspection failures. Vu said the map was designed to expose ICE activities typically hidden from public view.
SEE ICE MAP PAGE 2
JACK VU
ABBY MANUEL
Students renew sanctuary campus petition in the wake of ICE shootings in Minnesota HONGTAO HU
ASST. NEWS EDITOR Rice student organizations are circulating an open letter condemning the surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minneapolis, mourning the killing of Renee Good and calling upon Rice administration to protect its students from federal immigration raids. The open letter garnered over 26 faculty signatures by Jan. 27, said Conner Schultz, co-chair of Rice’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. The petition is led by the YDSA, Rice Students for Justice in Palestine and Rice’s Grad Campaign, who are calling upon Rice staff and faculty to sign in solidarity. “We are renewing the call to make Rice a Sanctuary Campus this year,” an Instagram post by the three groups reads. Members of the organization met in Ray’s Courtyard last Friday to discuss the campaign, spurred by the concurrent strike in Minneapolis called in response to the killing of Renee Good, who was shot in her car by an ICE officer in a case that is still under dispute. A spokesperson for the university
declined to comment on the petition. The letter calls upon Rice to create an ICE raid plan and legal fund for students and staff illegally detained and is shaped by Rice’s response to last year’s immigration disputes, said Schultz, a Will Rice College sophomore. Last year, three students and two recent graduates had their visas revoked.
I think it is time to demand that [Rice administration] do more to protect students. Erica Augenstein GRAD CAMPAIGN ORGANIZER
While Rice offered free legal consultations for students, continuing legal aid was costly. In March 2025, Student and Exchange Visitor Information System cancellations affected graduate students at Rice. SEVIS cancellations mean students cannot be paid by Rice, and Erica Augenstein, an organizer of Grad Campaign, said students are still
waiting on backpay. Augenstein, a graduate student of history, said Rice’s response to these problems has been “apathetic.” “There’s now just straight racial profiling happening by ICE and the administration has not responded to any of this other than to insist that people report to them where they are in the world,” Augustein said. “I think it is time to demand that they do more to protect students, to protect particularly grad students, but also non-citizen faculty and undergraduate students as well.” This call for a sanctuary campus is not new. Last year, a coalition of student groups petitioned for Rice to enshrine itself as a sanctuary campus, refusing to work with immigration agents without a judicial warrant. The petition resulted in a series of meetings between Rice YDSA and Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman, but student organizers achieved none of their demands, which asked Rice to begin noncompliance in disclosing citizenship and visa status along with providing legal support to students facing arrest, detention or deportation.
SEE SANCTUARY CAMPUS PAGE 4