Iowa State students Ivan Apolonio and Psalm Amos found what they felt was a xenophobic poster hung on the wall of the main lobby in Maple Hall on Thursday.

Apolonio, senior in kinesiology and Iowa National Guardsmen, posted a photo of the poster on Twitter. While Apolonio has senior status by qualification, he is in his first year at Iowa State.

“This is what was found at Maple Hall this morning. A direct insult to our international students and more specifically our DACA students,” Apolonio’s tweet said.

Apolonio estimated it took nearly five hours after reporting to the dean of students to hear back, and two hours to hear from his hall director. He said he was told an investigation was going to be started, but has yet to hear any updates.

Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Vernon J. Hurte told the Daily in an email on Monday evening that the Dean of Students Office responded “a little over an hour after he sent [the report].”

Apolonio and Amos believed police had yet to visit the building. Four cameras are located in the lobby of Maple Hall, and if functioning, caught the perpetrator who taped the poster outside of the men’s restroom.

No email has been sent to residents of Maple Hall and no community discussion has been planned with residents. Apolonio and Amos said they were offered a meeting to discuss how they felt by the hall director, but declined because they believe the response should be more than talking to them privately.

“If Iowa State wants to promote diversity, then maybe they should put a little more effort into discouraging such things like this,” Amos said.

Apolonio said some of the responses showed there is support for this type of behavior at Iowa State. A tweet that referred to him as a “pus**” had received several likes, including one from a student who identifies himself as a sophomore at Iowa State and treasurer of a fraternity.

The fraternity chapter website and the Iowa State student directory confirm this.

While Amos and Apolonio had not previously encountered this type of propaganda on campus, they discussed feeling as though people look at them differently at Iowa State.

“We’re not as common, just because we’re a little darker,” Amos said.

Apolonio said he felt just being told an investigation was going to take place was not adequate to address the issue and believed the university should be more proactive.

“I feel like maybe if they actively educated people on the situation or sent out emails to people saying ‘hey, this is happening,’ stuff like that, it would do some help rather than just tell me ‘hey, we’re going to do an investigation,’” Apolonio said.

Apolonio said he would like to see more tangible efforts from the university administration to address situations like this. While he said he’s not particularly political, he felt the university has a responsibility to see this and understand it makes many students feel unsafe.

Amos felt the university is not doing an adequate job of building understanding between people with different experiences and backgrounds.

The university considers acts like this to be a “bias incident.” According to the Iowa State Office of Equal Opportunity, over 50 incidents were reported during the fall semester alone. White nationalist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi propaganda has been found at Iowa State several times dating back to 2015. While some acts were treated as criminal mischief, no arrests have been made.

This poster used imaging and rhetoric consistent with the feminist movement, depicting the United States trying to protect its lower border from being grabbed by an unspecified hand.

Apolonio has served in the Iowa National Guard for two years and said he feels education is the only way to bring about equality, adding that it defeats the purpose if he, and other students, are subjected to discrimination and racism.

“I take great pride in my country, I take great pride in my school and I take great pride in being an American and also Mexican,” Apolonio said. “To me, the people who hung that poster up or who support that poster, are not real Americans.

“That’s not what America is made for.”

Apolonio said he felt incidences like this make the university look bad and discourages international students and DACA recipients from coming to Iowa State but felt his ability to make an impact is limited.

“I look at it as, especially with the ‘no means no,’ that obviously there’s that intention that [to compare immigration to] rape,” Apolonio said. “When you compare it to immigration, it’s just absurd and you wish you could do more but you can’t — especially being at a predominantly-white institution and me being of color.”

“#MyBordersMyChoice” is a nationalistic hashtag on Twitter that has also been associated with the white supremacist movement, with posts sporting this hashtag also being paired with “#ItsOkayToBeWhite” a recent social media movement with roots in white nationalism and white supremacy.

“As a member of Science Bound, a member of the Iowa National Guard, a member of the GRO program and the first person in my generation to go to college, it is an absolute slap in the face,” an email Apolonio shared on social media read.

GRO is a diversity and inclusion program at Iowa State that stands for “Growing through Relationships and conversations with Others.”

This poster which has found its way to Iowa State’s campus has also been sighted around college campuses in the United States and versions adapted for other countries have been sighted worldwide.

The poster and phrase has been making rounds on white nationalist and white supremacist websites and forums since at least April 2016.

Requests for comment from the fraternity and the ISU Police Department have yet to be returned.

Watch online for updates to this developing story.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a response from the Dean of Student’s Office. This story was updated due to an error. Police did not initially respond for comment because Daily staff failed to reach out. The Daily regrets this error.