The Society of Women Engineers at UCLA and Phi Lambda Rho encouraged members to stand up for immigrant rights and celebrate Hispanic culture at a Feb. 23 event.
Medha Prasad, an organizer from SWE, said SWE hosts a “Write 4 Rights” event every quarter to teach members how to contact their local representatives and advocate for causes they are passionate about. Prasad, a second-year biophysics student and SWE Lobbying’s campus events lead, added that each event has a different theme. This quarter, SWE decided to focus on immigrant rights.
The event included a presentation from SWE about immigration-related legislation in California, outlining how students can contact elected officials and advocate for bills. After the presentation’s conclusion, participants wrote letters, emailed representatives and ate event-provided snacks.
The club sent emails to representatives advocating for Senate Bill 841, which would limit immigration enforcement officers’ access to shelters for homeless people and survivors of domestic violence without a judicial warrant, and Assembly Bill 1896, a bill that would restrict certain public employment for people previously employed by federal immigration enforcement agencies.
“We thought that this would be a good way to get people involved in both a topic that is affecting a lot of people at UCLA and the U.S. as a whole and also get them to know about lobbying at the same time,” Prasad said.
The Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement activity across the United States since the start of the president’s second term, including in Los Angeles. Immigration enforcement officers have arrested more than 10,000 people in LA since June 2025, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Alyah Tolentino, a Phi Lambda Rho event organizer, said the event was especially important to members of her sorority, which sits on the Latinx Greek Council, especially those whose parents immigrated from Latin America.
Tolentino, a second-year public health student, said Phi Lambda Rho has hosted other events to help community members affected by immigration policy, such as a food drive for impacted families.
“It was a no-brainer for us,” she said. “We wanted to get involved.”
Lian Elsa Linton, a member of SWE, said she participated in Write 4 Rights to learn more about lobbying.
SWE provided attendees with a list of proposed bills relating to immigration policy and an email template they could use and send to their local representatives to demonstrate their support or criticism of each particular bill, Elsa Linton, a second-year computer science and engineering student, added.
“It’s so very easy to be fully unaware of the current bills that are being passed even though a lot of that can affect you,” Elsa Linton said.
Prasad said she wanted to advocate for immigration rights because she believes the people most affected by immigration policy often have the smallest voices and least representation in government.
Savannah Alanis, an SWE organizer, said the event was crucial for teaching SWE members how to advocate for issues aside from just immigration rights – including women’s rights and research funding protections.
“Using your voice, it brings visibility to you, and it inspires, hopefully, other women and girls to become engineers and use their voices as well,” said Alanis, a fourth-year linguistics and computer science and political science student.
Alanis also said it was important for engineers to be involved in lobbying because of “attacks on engineers,” relating to engineering program funding. Prasad also added that there is a pressing need to defend STEM research in the U.S.
President Trump’s administration slashed federal research funding grants near the start his second term. More than $230 million in federal grants were cut or suspended as of Jan. 8, 2026.
Alanis said that the event’s immediate goal was to show strong support for change in immigration policies within the California government and highlight the urgency needed to pass the laws they advocated for.
Prasad said she believes Write 4 Rights allows members to to engage with the government and make their voices heard.
“You’re writing … for allowing people to know that they have a voice, and they have some level of control in what their government does,” Prasad said. “It’s not all up to someone else.”
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