St. John’s border protection program put on ice after anti DHS backlash

St. John’s University and US Customs and Border Protection suspended a campus program to train students for careers in homeland security, after the backlash over the fatal shootingsof two Americans in Minneapolis by federal agents agents last month.

New York’s largest Catholic university has many graduates with careers in law enforcement, including former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who also served as US Customs commissioner under Bill Clinton.

SJU last June launched an Institute for Border Security and Intelligence Studies in partnership with CBP’s New York field office.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at the U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales, Arizona, with American flags and golden eagle finials behind them. — St. John’s University and US Customs and Border Protection suspended the Institute for Border Security and Intelligence Studies program amid backlash over the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. REUTERS

“After constructive, mission-focused conversations with US Customs and Border Protection, the decision was made to suspend, in advance of the one-year renewal, the academic partnership by mutual agreement,” said Simon Moller, SJU’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

A Vatican official issued a recent statement condemning the shootings of protesters in Minneapolis as “unacceptable.”

Mom of three Renee Good was killed by ICE agents after an altercation in her car, and ICU nurse Alex Pretti was killed by Border Patrol agents after they took a loaded weapon off of him.

Both were involved in the anti-ICE protesters, and the feds said agents in both cases feared for their lives.

Gothamist first reportedon the St. John’s border protection program being put on ice.

Entrance to St. John's University in Queens, New York. — The program was launched by SJU last June, partnering with the CBP’s New York field office. St. John’s University

The decision was announced in a Jan. 29 email from Law School Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum to the university’s law school faculty.

Meanwhile Customs and Border Protection announced that it would skip the career fairat fellow Catholic school Villanova University’s campus amid students’ opposition, according to a report.

It’s just the latest eye-opening move at St. John’s.

Conservatives are irate after SJU’s student government blocked a bid by the late Charlie Kirk’s conservative Turning Point USAgroup from opening a chapter on campus shortly after his assassination last fall.

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