Which types of repression are more likely to elicit foreign sympathy and support for victims? @kgcunnin.bsky.social and I find that US respondents are more sympathetic and supportive of those facing religious and language rights violations, but that these effects are not felt uniformly by partisans.

My mom and stepdad are from the same diaspora group as Zohran Mamdani’s dad (same like “my stepdad was kicked out of the same town and knows some of his classmates”) and apparently the New York Times doesn’t understand how diaspora works, so I am going to tell you a little about my mom’s people!

Scorching and effective summary by @nateschenkkan.bsky.social of how the Trump Administration has undone policy progress made by the prior administration around transnational repression.

"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."

Denaturalization (in order to subsequently deport) has long been used as a tool of political repression to suppress dissent. See Chapters 2, 3, 4, & 5 of "Threat of Dissent" 🗃️

Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say, and likely only set it back "months" (while also possibly empowering hardliners and radicalizing the regime and sparking a rally-around-the-flag effect and)

Why am I so unimpressed by these strikes? Israel and the US have failed to target significant elements of Iran's nuclear materials and production infrastructure. RISING LION and MIDNIGHT HAMMER are tactically brilliant, but may turn out to be strategic failures. 🧵 1/17

The Supreme Court hastened to add that the decision does not apply to members of the Federal Reserve www.npr.org/2025/06/23/g...

Every one of these petty, ideologically driven visa denials is an assault on *our* freedom of association, our right to hear, and our ability to learn about the world around us. They are meant to make us stupider, more susceptible to manipulation, and less free. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/w...

"An Australian man who was detained upon arrival at Los Angeles airport and deported back to Melbourne says United States border officials told him it was due to his writing on pro-Palestine protests by university students" www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

🚨🚨 ⬇️ A judge has ordered that Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was arrested two weeks ago by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents following his citizenship interview, be released from detention while his case proceeds. abcnews.go.com/US/lawyers-c...

From the Chinese Exclusion Act to pro-Palestinian activists: The evolution of politically motivated deportations @us.theconversation.com Rick Baldoz theconversation.com/from-the-chi...

Reminder that words matter. You can’t “deport” a US citizen. You might be kidnapping, disappearing, exiling, expelling, illegally removing, etc., but you’re not “deporting” a US citizen.

Even established authoritarian regimes consider arresting defiant judges an extreme tactic—a serious escalation usually reserved for after one-party rule is firmly entrenched. Seeing a judge arrested in the US today should alarm everyone who values democratic governance. This cannot be allowed. 🧵

BREAKING: In a sudden about-face, a DOJ attorney saiys ICE will be RESTORING the status of thousands of foreign students whose SEVIS records were terminated w/o notice earlier this month. The move comes amid mounting losses in courts around the country. www.wusa9.com/article/news...

the govt is so clearly just grabbing at stereotypes of "latin american gang" (mostly derived from MS13, as far as I can tell?) and pasting them onto tren de aragua, even though there's no actual connection

JUST IN: U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen has announced plans to travel to El Salvador this week if Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported, is not returned to the U.S. by then.

Websites tracking the student visa revocations and ICE abductions on college campuses www.wearehighered.org/campus-abduc...

This is exactly right. We have a duty to our students to defend their right to live and work freely and safely in the United States, and we have a duty to our institutions and communities to advocate for our own best interests. These are completely aligned.

International students will stop coming to American universities if their visas are going to be at risk. This will make our intellectual community poorer and also make tuition more expensive for domestic students.

If this reporting is accurate, it is extremely disturbing. Sanal Edamaruku, an Indian author living self-exiled in Finland since 2012, has reportedly been arrested in *Poland* as India is seeking his extradition on blasphemy charges. He was in Warsaw to speak at a conference. yle.fi/a/74-20154223

The Trump administration has admitted it committed an "error" when it deported Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran resident of Maryland, back to El Salvador last month. The administration should work with the Salvadoran government to ensure his safety.

Adjunct here legally, seeking asylum. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

“Now their universities are on notice that the government is looking for a settlement that includes abridging the autonomy of centers and departments devoted to the study of the Middle East,” Professor Bali said…. “I’ve never seen anything comparable to this. This is totally unprecedented.”

We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now

Hearing our secretary of state basically argue that free speech does not apply to foreign students on American soil is shocking and sickening -- even aside from the fascist way student are being seized off the streets by masked police in plain clothes. www.cbsnews.com/news/marco-r...

This is so dire, particularly after the lecture Vance gave Europeans on the evils of censorship. Breathtaking hypocrisy.

NEW! The Trump administration appears to have sent a married father with NO CRIMINAL RECORD in any country to rot in a prison in El Salvador because of a PAPERWORK ERROR. This man doesn’t even have tattoos! But his paperwork has two different peoples’ ID numbers listed and the wrong last name!

"Columbia agreed to ban masks, empower 36 campus police officers with new powers to arrest students and appoint a senior vice provost with broad authority to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies as well as the Center for Palestine Studies."

French scientist denied entry to the U.S. on route to a conference because a search of his phone revealed that he privately criticized Trump’s science policies to friends.

“Sentencing guidelines call for 20 years to life in prison.” For those catching up: the U.S. government is now explicitly considering the use of anti-terrorism laws—originally designed for foreign combatants—against college protesters. This is a horrifying, all-out assault on dissent.

Hooded indeed

"If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year's] data," said Staffan Lindberg, head of the Varieties of Democracy project, run out of Sweden's University of Gothenburg. www.cbc.ca/news/world/t...

Must read: Mahmoud Khalil speaks out for the first time since his arrest by the Trump administration in an exclusive letter, dictated over the phone to his family, from ICE detention in Louisiana.

Important story: Columbia student forced to flee to Canada after DHS accuses her of “supporting terrorism” for being in the general vicinity of a peaceful protest.

Recently, I was asked to brief members and staff of the 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about @citizenlab.ca research. In normal times, such a briefing would be an honour. But these are not normal times. My latest in @theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

“The subjugation of universities to state power is a hallmark of autocracy. Columbia University’s immediate submission and betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that seems intent on destroying US higher education.”

U.S. citizen child recovering from brain cancer deported to Mexico with undocumented parents www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...

The Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare: Mahmoud Khalil's detention is a frightening sign of an authoritarian slide www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/o...

apnews.com/article/fulb... Scholars stranded in America and abroad amid funding freeze of state department programs

Deporting non-citizens for their political opinions has precedent in the McCarthy era playbook. It seems the tactic is now being rehashed to use against pro-Palestinian activists.

As suspected it seems the Trump Administration is deprioritizing countering TNR. Horrible move against an organization that has provided so much valuable information and advocacy on the subject.

NEW BOOK: 'Transnational Repression and International Law' co-authored by The Citizen Lab's @sanstis.bsky.social is out now. It explores the issue of state-sponsored extraterritorial killings and the international legal frameworks to counter them. ⚖️ Order here: www.nomos-shop.de/en/p/transna...

The Deportation Data Project collects and posts public, anonymized U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets. A public good provided by academics and lawyers at Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Yale, and Columbia.

Terrible decision. Pentagon moves to gut operations focused on reducing civilian harm Officials at the Defense Department’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which seeks to limit collateral damage from military strikes against enemy combatants, were told to accept a buyout or be fired.

Some scattered thoughts after the most shocking and horrible moment of US diplomacy most of us have ever seen. Not even sure what the point of writing anything about this is, but here goes. 1/