Michigan State Government 
are open to Whitmer’s idea. I 
think both Republicans and 
Democrats can agree that 
tobacco usage has an adverse 
impact on Michigan’s well 
being and work to limit its 
usage,” Berger said. “As Ms. 
Whitmer has said, 95 percent of 
adult smokers started smoking 
before the age of 21. I believe 
raising the age required to 
buy tobacco would help curb 
Michigan’s tobacco usage. The 
human and economic costs of 
tobacco usage in Michigan are 
overwhelming.”

Berger also added he felt the 

proposal would help Michigan 

economically, 
something 

Whitmer also mentioned in 
her health care proposal.

“Over 
200,000 
children 

currently under the age of 18 
will eventually succumb to 
tobacco-related 
illnesses,” 

Berger said. “On the economic 
side, Michigan spends over 
$4.5 billion on health care costs 
due to smoking. Moreover, 
smoking costs Michigan over 
$4.75 billion in productivity 
loss as a result of tobacco-
related illnesses. Working to 
minimize tobacco usage in 
Michigan will be a boon for 
our health and economy.”

Shortly after Ann Arbor’s 

smoking 
ordinance 
went 

into effect in 2017, Attorney 
General Bill Schuette, who 
is now also the Republican 
candidate for governor, issued 

an opinion saying claiming the 
ordinance was in conflict with 
state law, though it was never 
challenged in court.

Additionally, 
Whitmer, 

Kelly and Berger all said they 
were in favor of extending 
smoking codes and regulations 
to products such as vapes and 
e-cigarettes. 

“Per CDC data, the number 

of high school students that 
used e-cigarettes in the past 
30 days increased by about 75 
percent over the past year,” 
Berger said. “ I believe that 
e-cigarettes 
are 
harmful 

on their own and have the 
potential 
to 
raise 
a 
new 

generation of nicotine addicts. 
I would like to see Michigan 
State Government take action 
to combat e-cigarette usage by 

happening at the Palestinian-
Israeli 
border. 
Families 
are 

subject to family separations, 
discrimination, 
harassment. 

They’re usually detained for 
hours and hours, even if you are 
an American citizen.”

The 
member 

explained 
how 
students 
of 

Palestinian or Arab heritage 
who go on study abroad trips 
through the University are often 
stopped at checkpoints, where 
they are forced to wait in long 
lines and are subject to intense 
interrogation, strip-searches and 
other forms of harassment.

The 
member 
also 
spoke 
 

about 
international 
political 

blacklists, highlighting the fears 
many Palestinian, Arab and 
Pro-Palestinian students have of 
being placed on a blacklist.

Central 
Student 

Government passed a #UMDivest 
resolution for the first time in 
the University’s history in 2017, 
which was also the first time the 

body allowed for a secret ballot, 
which members approved to 
protect pro-Palestinian students 
from blacklists.

“If you are put on that list 

and 
you 
go 
through 
these 

checkpoints, they’ll pull you 
out and you’re going to be 
interrogated, you’ll probably be 
deported, not allowed in,” the 
student said. “That’s something 

that the University has ignored 
time after time and has not 
released any statements about, 
and that’s another thing we’re 
trying to raise awareness about.”

LSA senior Yezenia Sandova, 

a member of La Casa, an 
organization 
that 
supported 

SAFE in its divestment resolution 
last year, said it was important 
to 
show 
solidarity 
with 

communities 
facing 
similar 

struggles.

Sandoval spoke about the 

parallels 
between 
the 
two 
 

border 
walls, 
especially 

considering the human rights 
violations committed as a result 
of the walls. She also highlighted 
the demonstration’s aim to raise 
awareness of struggles faced by 

minority students on campus and 
how the walls are affecting their 
lives at the University.

“Our main purpose, hopefully, 

by having this painting out here, 
was just to raise awareness and 
continue to have the U.S.-Mexico 
border conflict in the minds of 
people, especially when it comes 
to family separation, especially 
when it comes to Trump’s zero-
tolerance policy, his termination 
of catch and release and just 
to show how inhumane these 
policies are and how even 
 

after so many months, there’s 
literally 
no 
comprehensive 

immigration reform,” Sandoval 
said. “There (are) people in 
Central America and all of 
these countries struggling and 
trying to come to the U.S. for 
more 
educational, 
economic 

opportunities, 
and 
who 
are 

facing violence, persecution in 
their communities, and that’s 
a lot of the parallels that’s 
happening in Israel, Palestinians 
are facing a lot of human rights 
violations and inhuman policies, 
especially in interactions when it 
comes to border patrol.”

The SAFE member agreed, 

highlighting 
their 
efforts 

through 
divestment 
and 

demonstrations like Tuesday’s, to 
hold the University accountable 
for its actions in human rights 
violations. The 2017 divest vote, 
which was later voted down 
by the Board of Regents, called 
for the University to divest 
from Boeing, Hewlett Packard 
and 
United 
Technologies 

for 
supplying 
weapons 
and 

equipment to the Israeli military. 
As recently as June, Israel 
has been condemned by the 
United Nations for using lethal 
forceagainst Palestinian civilians 
protesting at the Gaza border.

“It’s important for us to get 

these walls out because we 
want to make sure that people 
are understanding the stake 
and how complicit we are as a 
University in these crimes. I 
know the border wall seems so 
far away… but our University is 
very complicit in these human 
rights violations because we are 
investing in American companies 
that are profiting off these border 
walls,” the student said. “We’re 
still pushing for the University to 
form a committee to investigate 
our 
investments 
in 
these 

companies that are complicit in 
the human rights violations at 
each of these borders.”

to help any of those workers,” 
she said.

Linkon also emphasized the 

importance of cultural effects 
from the economic devastation 
of 
deindustrialization, 
and 

how a feeling of hopelessness 
has 
extended 
to 
multiple 

generations. She referenced 
the common perception of 
Detroit as a fallen power to 
illustrate the point.

“You may not see the losses, 

but they’re there. And it’s 
continuing to create disease 
and difficulty and destroy 
the lives of communities,” 
she said. “If you live in a 
deindustrialized community, 
you hear again and again to 
get over it, and there are many 
reasons why they can’t get 
over it.”

Russo shifted the focus 

away from solely the industry 
workers 
and 
taking 
into 

account the widespread effects 
of economic recessions.

“It’s not just about the 

workers, 
It’s 
about 
what 

happened in 2008, the Great 
Recession. It’s the people who 
lost their health care, lost 
their pensions,” he said. “No 
doubt steel workers are part 
of the argument, but this is 
happening continuously.”

He 
also 
claimed 

Democrats 
have 
failed 
to 

mobilize the working class 
because separation between 
Washington, D.C., and the 
Midwest has isolated unique 
problems faced in previously 
industry-driven cities.

“In our studies, we found 

that a lot of people from 
the East Coast never really 
fully 
understood 
that 
was 

happening 
to 
the 
country. 

Washington is a bubble,” he 
said. “I live there nine months 
of the year, but the issues that 
are happening in the Midwest 
are 
not 
fully 
addressed 

politically. Youngstown’s story 
is America’s story.”

He also emphasized the 

issue of grouping the working 
class together. He compared 
Trump’s rhetoric to former 
presidential candidate Bernie 
Sanders, 
explaining 
how 

Sanders’s platform mobilized 
this group’s anger but directly 
targeted 
corporations 
and 

Wall 
Street, 
creating 
an 

institutional barrier.

“Firstly, 
there’s 
no 
one 

working class: The Black is 
different from the white, which 
differs by state,” he said. “Why 
Trump won is he redirected 
all 
that 
worker 
anger 
of 

their economic security, and 
 

moved 
it 
into 
a 
fight 

against 
African 
Americans, 

immigrants, 
rather 
than 

against corporations or Wall 
Street.”

LSA junior Jeremiah Dunne 

said the event gave him new 
perspective into the history of 
the working class.

“It’s a really interesting 

issue in this country, now 
especially. In my class we 
talk about the perspective of 
the working class people a 
lot, and how they’ve become 
disenfranchised through this 
careful effort of the wealthy. 
You can look back when unions 
first started in the thirties, 
and the working class was very 
involved in politics, and they 
were willing to work together 
and fight for their worth,” 

he said. “But nowadays the 
average auto worker doesn’t 
feel like they’re worth much. 
In fact, their employer tells 
them how much they’re worth 
depending on their paycheck. 
So 
a 
lot 
of 
people 
work 

minimum wage and they don’t 
feel like they’re worth health 
insurance, so they don’t fight 
for it.”

He provided the example 

of nationalized health care 
as a way that workers are 
mistreated.

“That’s also one of the 

reasons why corporations are 
against 
nationalized 
health 

care, because it makes the 
average person feel like they’re 
worth more, and they deserve 
things from the government 
and 
corporations,” 
Dunne 

said. 
“Despite 
nationalized 

healthcare being cheaper for 
corporations, 
because 
they 

don’t have to pay for people’s 
health care, they won’t in the 
long-run because it gives the 
worker power. That’s just an 
example of how bad things are 
for workers.”

swollen cheeks and jaw.

Ernst 
noted 
severe 

complications 
with 
the 

virus can sometimes occur, 
which 
include 
encephalitis, 

meningitis and deafness.

Mumps can be prevented 

by vaccination, though Ernst 
said mumps can cause some 
non-serious 
symptoms 
even 

in 
people 
who 
have 
been 

immunized. It is also possible 
for people carrying the virus 
to not display any symptoms. 
Ernst said a person with mumps 
could remain contagious until 
five days after symptoms begin.

According to the Centers 

for 
Disease 
Control, 
the 

implementation of the U.S. 
mumps vaccination program in 
1967 decreased recorded cases 
of mumps by 99 percent to less 
than 1,000 cases per year. In 
both 2016 and 2017, however, 
the number of mumps cases 
recorded nationally was above 
6,000, “mainly due to multiple 
mumps 
outbreaks 
reported 

across the country in settings 
where people often have close 
contact with one another, like 
college campuses.”

This is a developing story. 

Check back at michigandaily.
com for more details.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 10, 2018 — 3A

PRASHANTH PANICKER/Daily

Guests pour through books from the 19th century to the present at the Special Collections After hours: Skeletons in Our Closet event Tuesday.

SPIRIT BOOK S

attempt to deter immigrants from 
coming to the United States or 
spending years in the United States 
while applying for asylum. Nelsen 
said these immigration policies 
are harsh and often inhumane by 
nature, but emphasized that the 
current hardline policies have 
done very little to stop the flow 
of immigrants from Honduras, 
El 
Salvador 
and 
Guatemala, 

that we saw during the Obama 
administration.

Nelsen 
also 
discussed 
the 

shift in how U.S. Customs and 
Border 
Patrol 
officials 
have 

interacted with the media, and 
the implications this has on the 
current political conversation. 

He claimed under the Obama 
administration, 
Border 
Patrol 

was very straightforward and 
clear about their intentions. Now, 
he claims, they are intentionally 
vague to hide the fact that they are 
denying interviews to immigrants 
trying to enter legally.

Thompson explained she was 

able to investigate what was 
really happening inside these 
camps, through a confidential 
source that risked their job to 
garner 
attention. 
Thompson 

obtained a tape of a young girl 
crying to call her aunt inside of 
a detention center, which caught 
the attention of the nation and the 
White House.

“Those children and their 

voices 
drowned 
out 
all 
the 

political noise and the only thing 
anybody could hear anymore 

were those cries. Even people 
who thought they might support 
the idea of cracking down at the 
border, and more security at the 
border, didn’t think it should look 
like that,” Thompson said.

The 
panelists 
explained 

their personal experiences with 
the success of giving a face to 
the statistics, and of simply 
portraying humans as humans. 

Lin explained those coming to 

the U.S. seeking asylum know that 
once they get here, things won’t 
necessarily be easy; they will 
just be easier than the turmoil of 
their home country. People are 
immigrating to escape cultures 
of crime and violence to gain the 
ability to work and provide for 
their families. None of these fears 
satisfy the requirements to be 
granted asylum.

The Obama administration was 

relatively lenient on deporting 
people that had legitimate reasons 
to come to the U.S., even if those 
reasons may not have qualified 
them legally. Immigration and 
Customs 
Enforcement 
has 

historically delayed deportation 
for immigrants that have led 
successful lives in the U.S. for 
decades, 
but 
recently, 
these 

same people have been deported 
immediately upon their arrival to 
their court dates.

Thompson argued the high 

deportation rates in the U.S. 
violate the international laws 
the 
U.S. 
government 
signed, 

and the U.S. should be accepting 
more people, even if we are 
not comfortable doing so. Lin 
explained that in 1980, the U.S. 
accepted more than 200,000 

immigrants, taking responsibility 
for the wars and civil unrest the 
U.S. contributed to in Southeast 
Asia. The Trump administration 
recently stated that they are 
implementing a ceiling for 30,000 
immigrants this year.

Nelson argued U.S. policies are 

a major contributor to the influx 
of immigrants trying to come 
to the U.S. He explained that 
Americans are exporting gang 
culture to Central America and 
enjoying recreational drug use 
from the illegal drugs imported 
from Mexico. These drug cartels 
are terrorizing citizens, with the 
money we are handing to them, he 
argued.

In terms of solutions, Lin 

proposed the U.S. needs to 
reinstate previous policies to 
the forefront of our actions. She 

explained that many people are 
trying to enter the states legally, 
citing that 90 percent of people 
asked to come to asylum hearings 
show up, and suggested that the 
government simply give them a 
chance to enter legally.

Clemetson 
concluded 
the 

conversation 
reiterating 
the 

goal of this panel, which wasn’t 
to identify one clear solution, 
but rather to simply start the 
conversation.

“In a conversation like this the 

goal cannot be to provide answers 
. . . the goal we decided on is to 
provide context, to provide true, 
on the ground experience, to 
provide different points of view, 
and to provide connections with 
the audience,” Clemetson said.

BORDER
From Page 1A

VOTING
From Page 1A

SAFE
From Page 1A

MUMPS
From Page 1A

SMOKING 
From Page 2A

I think both 

Republicans and 
Democrats can 

agree that tobacco 

usage has an 

adverse impact on 
Michigan’s well 

being 

