Faculty and staff at the Johns Hopkins University were instructed not to intervene if federal law enforcement officers arrive on campus to detain a community member.

The memo was sent to members of the university and the health system last month by the Hopkins Office of General Counsel.

It comes as students around the country with lawful student visas and immigration statuses have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Students at the University of Alabama, Tufts University, Georgetown University, Columbia University and the University of Minnesota have been detained in the last two weeks.

The Johns Hopkins memo, on the university’s public safety website, instructs employees to remain calm and immediately contact the Office of Public Safety.

Federal law enforcement officers may enter areas of the campus that are open to the public. Many areas are open to the public, according to the letter.

But they do not have access to spaces in which Hopkins identification is required, such as some clinical spaces, administrative or faculty offices, classrooms and residence halls.

“Federal law enforcement officers are not authorized to access these non-public areas without meeting certain legal requirements,” such as a valid warrant or court order, the guidance states.

If an employee encounters a federal law enforcement officer who seeks to enter a nonpublic area, they are to “calmly request that the officer wait” and contact the appropriate public safety officer.

Hopkins employees are instructed not to accept “service of any legal document.”

“If a federal law enforcement officer takes action, with or without awaiting guidance from Johns Hopkins legal and/or public safety personnel, it is important that you do not intervene, as obstructing or otherwise interfering with certain government activity can be a crime,” the memo reads.

It instructs employees not to obstruct the officers’ activities or block their movement in any facility. Additionally, employees are instructed not to notify the person who is being sought by federal law enforcement officials.

Employees were also told not to “engage in any behavior in an effort to enable them to leave the premises or hide.”

The Hopkins Justice Collective, a group of students, affiliates and alumni that supports Palestinian causes, sent a letter to Hopkins leadership last week demanding the university be a “sanctuary campus” that protects “noncitizens, undocumented and vulnerable members of the Hopkins community.”

The letter asks Hopkins to prohibit ICE from being on campus and to refuse compliance with federal law enforcement officers. The university has not responded to the demands.

Johns Hopkins did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hopkins is under federal investigation for antisemitism complaints and is expected to be visited by the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, the same group that stripped Columbia University of $400 million in federal funding, this year.

A committee at the university decided this year not to divest from Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Friday that he had signed more than 300 letters revoking the visas of students, visitors and others that would force their expulsion from the United States.

Rubio said he had been signing letters daily to revoke visas since late January when he took office. He has told the Homeland Security Department to detain students, or recent graduates, for deportation for their opposition to American foreign policy.

In the cases of the college students who have been recently detained, that means taking pro-Palestinian stances.

But not all of the students targeted have participated in protests or encampments. Take the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student and Fulbright scholar from Turkey who was detained on Wednesday.

Ozturk was one of several authors of a student newspaper essay last year calling for Tufts to support Palestinian rights and divest from Israel.

As a result, Rubio ordered her visa to be revoked. Six people in black clothing, some wearing masks, seized her off a street outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. In video released of the event, Ozturk can be heard screaming.

Despite a federal judge ordering agents not to remove her from Massachusetts without prior notice, Ozturk was transferred to a detention center in Louisiana.

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