While many students used their spring break to improve their tan in Cabo San Lucas or lose it playing Call of Duty in their basement, a group of Creighton students spent part of their spring break in Washington, D.C., working for immigration reform.

Four Creighton students and two alumni attended the Ignatian Family Teach-In on Immigration in Washington, D.C., March 13-15.

The Ignatian Solidarity Network, an independent group that promotes communication, education, and social-justice awareness among Jesuit institutions, sponsored the event.

The organization also holds Teach-Ins in the fall at places such as the School of Americas in Georgia.

Arts & Sciences senior Lauren Fukuda along with the Creighton Center for Service and Justice helped organize the trip.

“I heard about it at the School of Americas Teach-In,” Fukuda said. “I got involved with the CCSJ to create a group to go down there.”

“We just put the word out there,” said Maria Teresa Gaston, director of the CCSJ. “We didn’t have that much money, so we weren’t able to put it out there as much, but we still got students out there.”

Along with Fukuda, Arts & Sciences senior Kara Stockdale, Arts & Sciences senior Ben Lowndes and Arts & Sciences junior Rachel Bloom all attended the Teach-In.

In Washington, D.C., they met up with Creighton alumni Patrick Ridder, who volunteers with the Immigration Law Center at Loyola New Orleans and Jeff Peak, who does volunteer work in Chicago.

The group raised all the money on its own with contributions from the CCSJ for registration, and the Rev. Andy Alexander, S.J., helped with housing.

“They paid for their own airfare and everything else,” Gaston said.

“It’s not easy to get funds for these kind of things. The Ignatian Solidarity Network isn’t affiliated with any school and they’re only about five years old.”

Fukuda and Stockdale each gave speeches at the event about their past experiences working for immigration reform.

“I worked for a social justice lobby and my focus was immigration legislation,” Fukuda said. “I became more and more involved and more and more interested in it.”

The overall goal of the event was to raise awareness of the issue of immigration through lectures, small group discussion and engaging in reflection.

“The point is to motivate them and help them understand the scope and what we need to be doing to make the immigration laws just and humane,” Gaston said.

The students also used the teach-in as an opportunity to network and find out what other schools are doing about immigration reform and other human rights issues.

“We worked close with Regis University and University of Denver to talk about establishing a Midwest social justice alliance to get more schools in the area involved,” Fukuda said.

“So we can help schools with less resources to help get their ideas out there, because not every school has its own service and justice department.”

On Monday, the students met with Nebraska State Senators Ben Nelson and Mike Johanns to lobby for immigration reform. Sen. Johanns told the group that the economy is his current focus and he probably won’t address immigration during this session. Sen. Nelson stressed that it was important to secure the borders first.

Fukuda suggested that the most important thing a student at Creighton can do to help with immigration reform is to get educated about the issue.

“There are a lot of stereotypes and myths surrounding our immigration system. Sit down and educate yourself to the reality and the human issues,” Fukuda said. “Omaha has a great immigrant community. The CCSJ and Multicultural Office are both great resources. It can be kind of daunting on your own, so stopping by and talking to anyone there would be great.”

Alexander, who helped fund the trip and has been an active supporter of immigration reform for years, stressed the importance of the issue in today’s society.

“The taxes these 12 million people pay are significant,” he said. “But their greatest contribution is the culture and many personal gifts these workers bring to our society.”

“It makes no sense to spend incredible amounts of money on building bigger fences and on insane government raids on work sites where we need workers from outside the country if we are not dealing with the fundamental issues surrounding why these people have to leave their own country to feed their families,” Alexander said.