Trump's attacks on universities get ever darker, with the shadows reaching our shores

The US has become a hostile and authoritarian state to foreign scientists and is choosing ideology over science.

Darkness descends

A colleague and I would like to write an academic paper on the potential impact of US funding cuts to global health programmes. Our ideal co-author is an international expert newly based in the US, and they would like to do it. But we are all worried that doing so will expose them to the risk of having their academic visa cancelled, being detained and eventually deported - no matter how solid the science and how academic and dry our language. We are especially fearful because they are brown.

My colleagues who have been writing about the new administration, or the situation in Gaza, in academic journals, on substack or on social media are cancelling work trips to the US. I too would not feel safe to go now, given how openly I have criticised the administration. Even a 1% chance of being denied entry or shipped to a detention centre is too high.

When I said these words out loud to my husband today I had to stop for a moment to let it sink in. Foreign scientists in the US are scared to publish anything perceived as critical for fear of being bundled off the street to a detention centre. Foreign scientists abroad are scared to go to the US because they have voiced criticism of the state. The US is actively cracking down on perceived dissenters and foreigners are the most vulnerable to arbitrary detention and lack of due legal process. The vaunted first amendment guaranteeing free speech has become a bitter and twisted joke.

This is not an overreaction

I already wrote three weeks ago about how the Trump administration’s attacks on science were following the authoritarian playbook - and things have only got worse since. I am sure your first reaction is to think that I am overreacting. It sounds ridiculous to say such things. It sounds unbelievable even to me. But it is where we are and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can organise to change it. Simply consider what we have seen over the last few weeks.

A student on a green card at Columbia University in New York who organised protests last summer against Israel’s attacks on Gaza was taken from his house and is still being detained in Louisiana. He has not been accused of breaking any law. Another student on a green card at Columbia managed to preempt attempts to detain her with a lawsuit, but the administration is nonetheless trying to revoke her green card because she attended protests.

A student at Tufts University in Boston who wrote an article last summer for a student newspaper criticising Israel’s attacks on Gaza was taken off the street and is now being detained in Louisiana. The only crime she is accused of is not having a valid visa - because the administration suddenly revoked it before detaining her.

An Indian student of Georgetown University in Virginia was arrested outside his home for ‘spreading Hamas propaganda’ for social media posts supporting Gaza, but has not been accused of any crime. He is being detained in Louisiana.

A Fulbright scholar at Columbia fled to Canada after learning her visa had been revoked and after evading immigration agents searching for her over two nights. She doesn’t know why her visa was revoked - homeland security accused her, without presenting any evidence, of terrorist sympathies. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, crowed about her ‘self-deportation’ on social media. As of 29 March, another student has been ‘disappeared’ by ICE from the University of Minnesota.

The Trump administration is trumpeting its detentions. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, said yesterday that over 300 student visas had been revoked and promised many more to come. He was explicit that it was not criminal activity triggering the revocation but suspicion of ‘causing a ruckus’. Rubio is also mandating a social media review for all visas of new and returning foreign students or academics, looking for “conduct that bears a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles).” As of 29 March, this now appears to be actioned - the Times of India is reporting that hundreds of students are receiving emails that their visas have been revoked and that they must leave the US immediately. Reasons given are attending campus protests or shares/likes of ‘anti-national’ posts on social media.

Facing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding, universities in the US are not fighting back. Columbia University has agreed to all the administration’s conditions for just starting discussion on the restoriation of its federal funding. These include greater controls on protests, greater ability to arrest students, greater external oversight over its faculty (including hiring decisions) and courses. Michigan University has officially cancelled all its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, along with dozens of other universities. NYU cancelled a talk by a former president of Medicins Sans Frontiere because her talk mentioned humanitarian workers killed in Gaza and Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy.

Those entering the country are also facing ideological tests. A French scientist travelling to a conference was denied entry after immigration officials found messages on his phone criticising the administration’s treatment of scientists. A Russian scientist working at Harvard university was detained on re-entering the US after officials revoked her visa, threatening to deport her to Russia. As an outspoken critic of Putin, she said she feared for her life if they did so and she is currently in detention in Louisiana.

Trump’s favourite ‘ology’ is ideology

The administration continues to cancel dozens of awarded grants every day, each one meaning that important science does not get done and that people lose jobs and possibly careers. The cancellations are based on ideology. The full list of cancelled grants (so far 439) is being tracked on this incredible google spreadsheet. The list of cancelled grants maintained by the US department of Health and Human Services (HHS) more than doubled today. Here is a taste of what research has been cancelled:

• 68 grants all about improving the health of LGBT+ populations

• Grants to understand the impact of deprivation or demographics on depression, or drug use or alcohol use.

• Grants examining the safety of drinking water and how it affects different communities

• Grants to understand patterns of chronic disease through generations of families, with a focus on the impact of deprivation

• Grants to understand (and improve) the problem of late diagnosis of autism in girls

• Grants to improve vaccine uptake in marginalised populations

• Grants examining how the risks of Covid-19 differ for different populations, including HIV and Cancer.

The impacts are being felt abroad as well. Researchers with US grant funding in the UK, EU, Canada and Australia are receiving surveys asking whether their research complies with US government idology - specifically whether they are working in a DEI or climate change related area.

What can be done

If you are a foreign scientist working in the US, or even seeking to enter the US for a conference or temporary collaboration, it is simply dangerous to have criticised, or to now criticise, the regime.

Scientists who are US citizens have more protections and many are now coming together to fight back - especially in the absence of any meanginful action by their institutions. The American Association of University Professors this week sued the Trump administration for unconstitutional detention of foreign students and academics. We must support such efforts.

Meanwhile, those of us who can avoid travel to the US must continue the science others cannot and speak up where others are silenced.