Contract signed! My new edited book, "The Untold Stories of International Student Mobilities", will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026/2027 🥳 You can find a little preview of the amazing authors contributing to it here: www.linkedin.com/posts/jlmitt...

Took a little break from Bluesky recently, but I'm back to share that our new journal has now published its first issue! Journal of Global Higher Education: journal.libraries.wm.edu/global_highe... Open for submissions in September!

Recently got a physical copy of Derrida’s Writing and Difference, but a printing error from the publisher put the children’s book “A Tricky Trespasser: A Kitty Corner Adventure” in the front of the book before Derrida’s writing starts. Feels…apt?

Make no mistake: this is not only about Harvard, nor only about the US, or even only about 'Trump'. It is meant to send all universities a reminder that things such as university autonomy and academic freedom are essentially liberal decoration on the precarious balance with the power of the state.

Nearly 7000 students at Harvard are having their entire lives upturned, and if your first reaction is 'but how will the institution survive' .... you might want to sit with that for a minute

This framing is all wrong Our international students are not a “crucial funding source” They are our STUDENTS They are the reason we EXIST We teach STUDENTS

Excited to announce that in collaboration with @harveyhumphrey.bsky.social & @kathbrowne.bsky.social I am editing a handbook on queering research methods & accepting chapter contributions now. Please share & get in touch if you have any questions. uofg.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

We're currently advertising for a 3+ year post-doc position @education.ox.ac.uk working on the ESRC-funded @studentspolitics.bsky.social project with @rilleraaper.bsky.social, Tom Fryer & me - to start ASAP Deadline: 9 June Please repost- thanks! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

I've spent the last few days trying not to scream every time I see a scholar writing a hot take about the immigration white paper only in terms of how it's going to impact university finances.

Starmer echoing Powell on 'strangers', the references to Birmingham, to lack of 'integration' and speaking English. It's such a despicable mix of all the worst parts of racism over the last half century. Even the way they upload his script, a desperate media spectacle www.gov.uk/government/s...

Labour’s ‘new’ migration plans are a continuation of a long history of racist, xenophobic immigration policies. This government says it's committed to race equality, but these plans are a form of modern day racism 🧵

And I'll keep shouting about this: The moment the UK left the EU, the continued designation of 'EU migrants' and 'non-EU migrants' became nothing more than a racialised hierarchisation of who is deemed 'good migrants' and 'bad migrants'

This immigration white paper is so full of flaws in logic. You cannot say A) There were more migrants in period X, and B) The economy was worse in the same period, therefore C) Migrants made the economy worse

Lovely to hear from the Prime Minister that the historical policies which allowed my Mum to remain in the UK after studying here, thus enabling my existence, was a “squalid experiment in open borders”.

If the UK has 'open borders' and 'uncontrolled immigration', then why did I spend £15,000 over ten years and five visa applications to be here?

Toughening migration rules doesn’t challenge Reform. It validates them.

I have a lot of thoughts about Starmer's immigration speech, but the prevailing one right now is: How embarrassing for the government to speak about human beings in this way

Today, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies. 📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro

Finished a string of meetings this week to quadruple the the organizing team for @risnetwork.bsky.social, now a team of 14! Feeling both EXCITED because they are all amazing people with wonderful ideas for growing the network, and NERVOUS because our baby is now a teenager and I have to let it go.

Every few months there’s a new article put out that recycles the same tired story about how economically valuable international students are, and it gets shared around in praise by a bunch of scholars who can’t see how dehumanizing that narrative is

Sitting outside after work on a warm sunny day, thinking about how I miss the sounds of cicadas in the summer. Mobility means always missing something (even when ‘home’ is complicated right now)

Gladly signed. "Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia" docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Penguin Random House is looking for new queer voices and is currently taking unagented submissions for fiction and nonfiction by LGBTQ+ writers. www.instagram.com/p/DI9PlxCRp38/ #BookSky #QueerBookSky #LGBTQBooks #WritingCommunity 🌈📚

Happy to share a recording of my keynote speech at BALEAP last week, focusing on 'seeking kindness in our work with international students' www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPwK...

Delighted to be giving the Gender & History lecture at Uni of Bristol on 15th May (and on Zoom). Join us for a discussion of trans history, colonial history, & non-human animal history. There will, of course, be merfolk. Link here: ticketpass.org/event/ELMPHJ...

Walz: If you say you love freedom but you don't believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love is not freedom, it is privilege.

Language policing: don't say "Palestine," "genocide," etc. Tone policing: don't express outrage about a genocide Policing: don't protest a genocide or face arrest

Did you miss our recent co-hosted panel about queer international students? You can catch up with the recording now at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD9Y...

Oxford academics drinking from the skull of an enslaved Caribbean woman as recently as 2015 and they still have it if you’re wondering how decolonisation is going

Watching the situation with international students in the United States from afar, I found myself writing this piece: 'Where is the field's voice against the erosion of international students' civil liberties?' researchintlstudents.com/2025/04/22/w...

"ICE took our students, we want them back," @aaup professors from NYU/Columbia among other universities chant, marching to Foley Square.

Ah I see we are exploiting the hostile environment for capitalist profit now 👍👍👍👍

On my way back home from Plymouth after an invitation from BALEAP to give a keynote at their biennial conference (thank you 🙏) “Seeking kindness in our work with international students” - recorded and hope to share soon!

In 2019 a BYU Japanese PhD student helped organized a fishing outing. The group caught more fish than they were allowed, but prosecutors decided not to charge him. Now, his visa is being revoked. Kudos to Rubio for keeping America safe. www.deseret.com/utah/2025/04...

I had the pleasure of seeing Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o speak last year and his talk focused on “normalized abnormalities” and I can’t stop thinking of that phrase every time I look at the news these days. Normalized abnormalities. All of it.

We're tracking the number of international students whose visas have been revoked by the State Department. We've confirmed over 300 so far and there are likely many more. Get in touch if you've got information you'd like to share with us www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...

✍️ New blog post: "Notes from the periphery: On gaps between theories and realities in higher education" by An Pham Read at: researchintlstudents.com/2025/04/07/n... In this post, An speaks about knowledge production and how international students' knowledges are often ignored.

The pattern of ICE apparently hustling its detainees over a state border to frustrate habeas petitions in the jurisdiction where they were detained continues. Remember that ICE didn’t disclose Öztürk’s location, publicly or to her counsel, until she reached Louisiana.

Arrived in Chennai! A groggy jetlagged mind, but the sun is here to greet me 🌞

We're paying attention to what, four prominent cases? But the State Department says there are another 296. www.axios.com/2025/03/27/t...

My new approach to a manageable workload will be questioning whether any idea I have makes enough of a contribution to society that writing it is worth lining the pockets of exploitative publishers and AI tech bros.

So excited to get my £22 royalty check for our Research with International Students book. We paid £10,000 to the publisher to make it open access and it has had thousands of downloads, but at least I can buy a sandwich at the airport tomorrow because academic publishing isn’t broken at all 👍👍👍👍

We’re seeing a sharp increase in the weaponization of international students’ precarious visas statuses to silence their political dissent, and it isn’t limited to the United States.

She is a Teachers College alum and doc student at Tufts on a valid visa. She co-wrote an op ed calling for Tufts to recognize genocide in Gaza. She has been taken by Homeland Security.

Everyone in our field should be absolutely screaming about this

I know a Palestinian higher education student from Gaza who needs advice from someone specializing in English Language Teaching. If you can help, please DM me. Thank you.

Maybe I’m getting old but I feel like the last few times I’ve been to an art museum there are just a lot of people taking photos of them pretending to look at art without ever actually looking at it, and it seems really dystopian

❗️Authors and illustrators: have your books been used to train AI? Today the Atlantic published a search tool allowing authors to search for their books in the LibGen dataset, which has been used to train Meta's AI system. Search here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The media can (and should) reject the Right's deceptive frame. This is not about "references to diversity, equity, and inclusion." It is a neosegregationist attempt to erase everyone but white males from the nation's history.