Princeton students panic over Border Patrol job listing

Students at Princeton University are outraged over an online job listing advertising a position with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The controversial listing was featured on Handshake, a third-party recruiting platform provided to students by Princeton’s Career Services.

[RELATED: School issues warning about ‘rumors’ of ICE agents on campus]

The Daily Princetonian reported last week that while the job posting is not new, students are now finding it objectionable given President Donald Trump’s policy on family separation.

The commander-in-chief signed an executive order late last month to end the separation of families at the US-Mexico border after the issue gained nationwide attention and criticism from the political opponents of the current administration.

According to the Princetonian, several Hispanic students discovered the job posting and found it controversial in light of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. 

Eva Kubu, the interim executive director of Princeton’s Career Services, told the newspaper that the job listing was originally posted by Handshake in the fall of 2017.

Samuel Santiago, a student at the school, came across the listing in late June, proclaiming in a Facebook post that “Handshake is helping ICE recruit Princeton University students to become Border Patrol Agents.”

[RELATED: Berkeley students panic after ICE vehicle spotted on campus]

According to the Princetonian, Santiago is primarily worried about the message that the school sends by promoting a Border Patrol job listing, and has previously met with school officials to address the institution’s language toward immigrants.

“If we as a university claim to be in favor and service of humanity and the nation, then we also need to take a step back to think about the language we use to talk about the immigrant community,” Santiago told the Princetonian.

While Kubu defended the university’s connection to the job listing, she also remained supportive of the students’ grievances. 

“I have a great deal of empathy for anything with respect to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” she told the Princetonian. “I strongly support our students having the freedom to voice concerns over opportunities that they feel should not be in the system or that they have an ethical or moral concern with.”

Kubu also told the publication that the school must remain objective when it comes to selecting job listings and that, during the last nine years, she recalls the removal of only one posting that officials found to be misleading.

“We acknowledge that not all opportunities are of interest to all students,” wrote Daniel Day, assistant vice president for communications at the university, in a statement to the student paper. “Still, we believe it is appropriate to leave it to the members of our community to make their own personal decisions about the paths they pursue.”

[RELATED: College trains students to ‘document immigration raids’]

Kabu also noted that approximately 500 other schools’ career centers partner with Handshake, noting that Career Services may be unable to remove the job listing due to subjective complaints. 

Both university officials, however, reportedly urged students to continue voicing their views on the matter, and Kabu pledged that administrators “will meet with [students] on a one-on-one basis” to address their concerns.