What has our country turned into, as we see our home grown Gestapo sweep up Trump's "vermin" off the streets and ship them either to a Latin American prison or back where they came from without due process of law? We are no better than Hitler's Brown Shirts.
Thank you Linda, for providing alternatives to aspiring university students.
As a former math professor it pains me to agree that students should seek education elsewhere. But as an educator I need to advise students on achieving their goals; and their opportunities here are evaporating.
Hey Bob, Agreed! Safety First! It upsets me no end that Trump is destroying what has been built up over centuries to become the country that it is, flaws and all, but also offering a great life to many, and now that is just being destroyed like a giant toddler having a temper tantrum and smashing everything in his way.
I too am an educator. After spending most of the last 25 years teaching in an elite private school, I have learned that students/people need to see that goals are not always achieved in the way one plans, but if one perseveres they can be achieved. I love Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken for that very reason, and it is often a mantra to me to get through difficult times when things do not go my way.
I am posting the poem here because I love it so much, and as guiding words to foreign students in the US who now have to think their way out.
This is a devastating post to read and agree with.
In my opinion (US/Irish dual citizen living in Ireland) Ireland is by and large a safe place for international students from all walks of life. There is some rising crime but generally very safe. Housing is a big issue, like many other European countries, and cost of living can be high but with some planning it can be okay. A lot of students stay in “digs” - a room in a mature person’s house. (Our two sons are doing that.) And tuition is higher here than some other European countries but I think in many cases still more reasonable than the States. The country is not without its issues, of course, but it’s a country that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which can be incredibly satisfying at times as long as a person can go with the flow a lot!
Hi Claire, All countries have their good and bad sides. I am assuming the government is not arresting people and throwing them into prison for peaceful protests. So, it sounds like an option too.
I know my daughter is considering doing a semester abroad in Ireland from Germany. I know it is considered very safe. Sounds good. As an EU citizen she should not have to pay tuition. If she does she will be borrowing money for that.
John Howard who also writes a Substack about living abroad used to live in Ireland first, and then retired to France. https://leavingamerica.substack.com/
I did have a reader in a different article say her Jewish grandsons want to move to Ireland and she was somewhat concerned about their safety. How would you say the social climate there is for Jews?
Yeah, really good question. (As a disclaimer, my perspective is limited to being a middle-aged mom in the south of the country, not particularly tuned into the pulse of university life.)
I generally agree with this op-ed - “There unquestionably are lurid examples of outright anti-Semitism, but that is not the national mood. However, there has been an outbreak of carelessness and insensitivity, and systematic negligence – until very recently – in terms of engagement with Jews in Ireland, a population that is relatively small and diverse in views.”
I think Ireland’s leadership just got it really wrong in its messaging. Irish people (in the main) are strongly compassionate and passionate humanitarians. Things catch on fast in this small country. Support for gay marriage swept across the country, support for repealing the 8th amendment (abortion rights) - and support for the Palestinians. “Part of the problem is the decibel level here of discourse around the Middle East generally and Gaza specifically. Little is said below the level of shouting. There is no space left here for either a broader perspective or nuance.”
I do think this will change. As Howlin rights, the shame is on us. We need to change this, and I think (hope) the government now recognises this.
On a side - politics and religion, however, are generally not discussed in social settings. I think there is a reason for this. As my husband’s grandfather, who fought in the Civil War, told him - “Never discuss religion or politics in the pub”.
I think your daughter will enjoy it here. It is an easy-going place. EU tuition rates are much lower, and I know Irish students who qualify for the Irish grant can use it in Europe. Maybe the same applies from Germany? The Further Ed sector just dropped all fees, and EU students can avail of these options. My husband teaches an Outdoor Education Instructor Course - so any Germans/EU citizens who want to come, please apply! :) I wish higher ed would follow suit with the fees!!
Thanks for the substack recommendation, and your posts generally. 👍
Please share it if you know anyone who is a student who could then share it with foreign students. Sometimes people need to point the way to someone in a very stressful situation. My friend was in the LA fires and they were waiting to leave until the last minute when the government gave the you must leave signal. I told her to leave immediately and not wait for that. I could see it because I was not in the situation. So, I am trying to help people inside the US to see a way out. I am terrified for foreign students and other immigrants to the US, including my own family members.
Thank you, Linda -- a superb survey of U.S. villainy now hitting students of the world.
U.S. mainstream media and legacy press have failed to see even the beginning of the extent of damages from its "higher" ed so blind to so many so hurt. Blind, too, to Trump's direct attacks on U.S. universities such as Columbia, U of Michigan, Tufts, and others who've had sympathy for D.E.I. and for those aghast at even the Biden administration full-tilt supporting Netanyahu's far-right murders and land grabs in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza.
The world needs a program for students of upper high school and university age who could write essays, in English, first for their home classrooms, then for exchange with other schools in neighboring cultures. English is the world's international language, and students need to be equipped to see each other better in all the cultures they inhabit.
Standardized testing, as developed in the U.S., and now spread to all the world, has opposite priorities. It loathes the personal in people and promotes the abstracted, the categorical, the simpleton-causal linear and the top-down easily-packaged. Great for the world's advocates of corporate greed and dictators espousing group identity and group hatreds.
Thank you Phil. I like your idea of a cultural exchange. I would also like to see more people go on international exchanges. My friend's son was very into a certain type of diving that the Norwegians are into, so he talked his parents into finding him a Norwegian tutor. Then, he went on an exchange to Norway. His exchange partner lived on an island and went to school via boat. So, he got to do that too.
Now his partner is visiting him in Chicago. They actually live almost in the suburbs so not so close to the city center. My friend tells me that this Norwegian high schooler is totally fascinated with downtown Chicago, particularly the night life.
It is making me of how much cool culture American children, particularly inner city children transport around the world in terms of music, dance and dress. It starts with spreading to the other parts of the city, then the suburbs, but ends up in other countries. This is the kind of things that even MAGAs emulate, the handshake, the fist bumping, without even understanding where it comes from. I don't think this can be canceled. I hope not.
I agree. Apparently it is not sufficient to be in the country entirely legally, and it is not sufficient to have abstained from all political activity or even from allowing an opinion to slip online. One of the students abducted seems to have abstained from political discourse and it did little good. At least two (so presumably several) were in the country legally and had not been notified their green cards were revoked, and their special status likewise, so I would caution any foreign student in the US for their studies not to feel secure due to their legality or their innocence. For all they know, they may have been walking around technically illegally since the secret withdrawal of their legal status a few days or moments ago.
When people say the cruelty is the point this is what they mean; if the goal was simply to get these students out of the country they could be notified to leave so they could close down their coursework, make arrangements regarding their apartments, pack, buy tickets and leave. When it's done in a way that offers the individual no opportunity to comply then declares them essentially criminal, they are simply collecting warm bodies for their score cards and prison contracts. So yes - if my child were studying as a non-citizen in a US university I would want them out as soon as possible.
I have family members with Green cards and I am very worried for them for so many reasons. I think there are plenty of other groups that need to think about leaving too, but the reasons may have slower creep or be more insidious.
The amount of work that must have gone into this excellently written resource is absolutely stunning. I am in awe. I'd like to point out that much of this is useful information for non-students who are also considering a move.
Thank you Yehawes. I actually had written a piece called A "Plan B" for Catastrophe, that was addressing people more generally. I wrote it before Trump took office.
I am hoping to be a resource to people who would like to consider how they could leave the US. A friend of mine is looking to leave with his wife for a few years.
I know that John Howard who is in France is also writing with advice for people who want to consider moving abroad. He also lived in Ireland.
I did not realize Andra Watkins was abroad. I haven't listened to her since the election due to having to adjust in box load reading... she's still there but I've been absorbed elsewhere. I think John Howard is one I just signed up to after your post, and I've red tagged this article (yours) so I don't lose it and can share it when needed. Thanks for your work.
Thank you Liz. I know that someone mentioned concern about Timothy Snyder leaving for Canada last night on Ruth Ben-Ghiat's zoom call, and she said he and his wife have been quietly leaving for the last 2 years. I know he is in Europe a lot. Jason Stanley is leaving more recently. I get it. I also know that a lot of people are leaving quietly, because it is good to be out before you say anything under fascists. We always have friends and family to worry about if we are outspoken and raise the ire of the administration. All of the scientists I know are affected by this, even if they have their funding for now, it is going to be harder to get in the future, and it seems like it will come with strings. So, for academics, research may not be possible in the US. What do you do then?
To add to your advice to US foreign students, here is a Boston Globe article with advice to colleges and universities about how to assist foreign students:
Thank you. I really am of the belief that even fighting it should be done from outside of the country. I understand that US universities are worried about losing tuition money, and will probably all have to reduce their programs if they lose enough students. This is a secondary concern to helping young people lessen the trauma, which I think might have been avoided to some extent if Universities had not told everyone to come back before Trump was inaugurated because one did not know what would happen. I knew what would happen because Trump was telling us. I considered it very irresponsible to endanger them like this. I think Universities should have been telling them that they should take the semester off or prepare to do their semester from abroad. Another thing that these universities can do is make campuses in other countries available if they have them.
If American Universities are to continue to teach the curriculum they have been teaching, which is not the racist Christian Nationalist curriculum that the Trump administration intends, then they should all eschew all federal dollars, and expand into other countries. I know the University my family works for has a campus in Paris, and in one in Hong Kong. This is the direction that American Universities might need to go.
I think how foreign students are to proceed also depends on what stage of life the foreign student is in - for undergraduates, who have not yet made the US their home, it makes sense to think seriously about studying elsewhere, being safe, avoiding trauma. But many older foreign students have been in the US for many years, and have their communities, their professional and personal networks in the US and it becomes is a much more complicated decision.
And I see your point about how universities telling students to return before Trump was inaugurated was, certainly in retrospect, short sighted and selfishily financial too.
Yes. It is individual. My husband has been living in the US for a long time, not from being a student, but from being a post-doc. However, whatever stage you are in, you are not going to be growing or developing in any way you want to from inside an ICE prison. This is me being clear. Reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr has made me always look at the signs when it is time to go. Her family did, and others they knew did not believe Hitler's Germany would get as bad for Jews as it did. Her family survived. Others they knew did not.
I'm not going to disagree with you that these are very, very dangerous times, and people need to take all of what is going on with eyes as open as they can be. PS I just ordered the book from my library!!
What has our country turned into, as we see our home grown Gestapo sweep up Trump's "vermin" off the streets and ship them either to a Latin American prison or back where they came from without due process of law? We are no better than Hitler's Brown Shirts.
Thank you Linda, for providing alternatives to aspiring university students.
As a former math professor it pains me to agree that students should seek education elsewhere. But as an educator I need to advise students on achieving their goals; and their opportunities here are evaporating.
Hey Bob, Agreed! Safety First! It upsets me no end that Trump is destroying what has been built up over centuries to become the country that it is, flaws and all, but also offering a great life to many, and now that is just being destroyed like a giant toddler having a temper tantrum and smashing everything in his way.
I too am an educator. After spending most of the last 25 years teaching in an elite private school, I have learned that students/people need to see that goals are not always achieved in the way one plans, but if one perseveres they can be achieved. I love Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken for that very reason, and it is often a mantra to me to get through difficult times when things do not go my way.
I am posting the poem here because I love it so much, and as guiding words to foreign students in the US who now have to think their way out.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken
Someone posted the picture and I immediately thought of the poem.
This is a devastating post to read and agree with.
In my opinion (US/Irish dual citizen living in Ireland) Ireland is by and large a safe place for international students from all walks of life. There is some rising crime but generally very safe. Housing is a big issue, like many other European countries, and cost of living can be high but with some planning it can be okay. A lot of students stay in “digs” - a room in a mature person’s house. (Our two sons are doing that.) And tuition is higher here than some other European countries but I think in many cases still more reasonable than the States. The country is not without its issues, of course, but it’s a country that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which can be incredibly satisfying at times as long as a person can go with the flow a lot!
Hi Claire, All countries have their good and bad sides. I am assuming the government is not arresting people and throwing them into prison for peaceful protests. So, it sounds like an option too.
I know my daughter is considering doing a semester abroad in Ireland from Germany. I know it is considered very safe. Sounds good. As an EU citizen she should not have to pay tuition. If she does she will be borrowing money for that.
John Howard who also writes a Substack about living abroad used to live in Ireland first, and then retired to France. https://leavingamerica.substack.com/
I did have a reader in a different article say her Jewish grandsons want to move to Ireland and she was somewhat concerned about their safety. How would you say the social climate there is for Jews?
Yeah, really good question. (As a disclaimer, my perspective is limited to being a middle-aged mom in the south of the country, not particularly tuned into the pulse of university life.)
I generally agree with this op-ed - “There unquestionably are lurid examples of outright anti-Semitism, but that is not the national mood. However, there has been an outbreak of carelessness and insensitivity, and systematic negligence – until very recently – in terms of engagement with Jews in Ireland, a population that is relatively small and diverse in views.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/03/14/ireland-is-not-anti-semitic-but-its-not-a-good-time-to-be-jewish-in-this-country/
I think Ireland’s leadership just got it really wrong in its messaging. Irish people (in the main) are strongly compassionate and passionate humanitarians. Things catch on fast in this small country. Support for gay marriage swept across the country, support for repealing the 8th amendment (abortion rights) - and support for the Palestinians. “Part of the problem is the decibel level here of discourse around the Middle East generally and Gaza specifically. Little is said below the level of shouting. There is no space left here for either a broader perspective or nuance.”
I do think this will change. As Howlin rights, the shame is on us. We need to change this, and I think (hope) the government now recognises this.
On a side - politics and religion, however, are generally not discussed in social settings. I think there is a reason for this. As my husband’s grandfather, who fought in the Civil War, told him - “Never discuss religion or politics in the pub”.
I think your daughter will enjoy it here. It is an easy-going place. EU tuition rates are much lower, and I know Irish students who qualify for the Irish grant can use it in Europe. Maybe the same applies from Germany? The Further Ed sector just dropped all fees, and EU students can avail of these options. My husband teaches an Outdoor Education Instructor Course - so any Germans/EU citizens who want to come, please apply! :) I wish higher ed would follow suit with the fees!!
Thanks for the substack recommendation, and your posts generally. 👍
Excellent advice, Linda. I hope foreign students in the US take the growing threats seriously and go elsewhere for their educations.
Please share it if you know anyone who is a student who could then share it with foreign students. Sometimes people need to point the way to someone in a very stressful situation. My friend was in the LA fires and they were waiting to leave until the last minute when the government gave the you must leave signal. I told her to leave immediately and not wait for that. I could see it because I was not in the situation. So, I am trying to help people inside the US to see a way out. I am terrified for foreign students and other immigrants to the US, including my own family members.
Thank you, Linda -- a superb survey of U.S. villainy now hitting students of the world.
U.S. mainstream media and legacy press have failed to see even the beginning of the extent of damages from its "higher" ed so blind to so many so hurt. Blind, too, to Trump's direct attacks on U.S. universities such as Columbia, U of Michigan, Tufts, and others who've had sympathy for D.E.I. and for those aghast at even the Biden administration full-tilt supporting Netanyahu's far-right murders and land grabs in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza.
The world needs a program for students of upper high school and university age who could write essays, in English, first for their home classrooms, then for exchange with other schools in neighboring cultures. English is the world's international language, and students need to be equipped to see each other better in all the cultures they inhabit.
Standardized testing, as developed in the U.S., and now spread to all the world, has opposite priorities. It loathes the personal in people and promotes the abstracted, the categorical, the simpleton-causal linear and the top-down easily-packaged. Great for the world's advocates of corporate greed and dictators espousing group identity and group hatreds.
My program for diverse people, cultures, and environments: www.EssayingDifferences.com .
Thank you Phil. I like your idea of a cultural exchange. I would also like to see more people go on international exchanges. My friend's son was very into a certain type of diving that the Norwegians are into, so he talked his parents into finding him a Norwegian tutor. Then, he went on an exchange to Norway. His exchange partner lived on an island and went to school via boat. So, he got to do that too.
Now his partner is visiting him in Chicago. They actually live almost in the suburbs so not so close to the city center. My friend tells me that this Norwegian high schooler is totally fascinated with downtown Chicago, particularly the night life.
It is making me of how much cool culture American children, particularly inner city children transport around the world in terms of music, dance and dress. It starts with spreading to the other parts of the city, then the suburbs, but ends up in other countries. This is the kind of things that even MAGAs emulate, the handshake, the fist bumping, without even understanding where it comes from. I don't think this can be canceled. I hope not.
I agree. Apparently it is not sufficient to be in the country entirely legally, and it is not sufficient to have abstained from all political activity or even from allowing an opinion to slip online. One of the students abducted seems to have abstained from political discourse and it did little good. At least two (so presumably several) were in the country legally and had not been notified their green cards were revoked, and their special status likewise, so I would caution any foreign student in the US for their studies not to feel secure due to their legality or their innocence. For all they know, they may have been walking around technically illegally since the secret withdrawal of their legal status a few days or moments ago.
When people say the cruelty is the point this is what they mean; if the goal was simply to get these students out of the country they could be notified to leave so they could close down their coursework, make arrangements regarding their apartments, pack, buy tickets and leave. When it's done in a way that offers the individual no opportunity to comply then declares them essentially criminal, they are simply collecting warm bodies for their score cards and prison contracts. So yes - if my child were studying as a non-citizen in a US university I would want them out as soon as possible.
I have family members with Green cards and I am very worried for them for so many reasons. I think there are plenty of other groups that need to think about leaving too, but the reasons may have slower creep or be more insidious.
The amount of work that must have gone into this excellently written resource is absolutely stunning. I am in awe. I'd like to point out that much of this is useful information for non-students who are also considering a move.
Thank you Yehawes. I actually had written a piece called A "Plan B" for Catastrophe, that was addressing people more generally. I wrote it before Trump took office.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
Then, once he was in office, I wrote a next version, A "Plan C" for Catastrophe.
https://open.substack.com/pub/lindaweide/p/a-plan-c-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Perhaps it is time for a Plan D for Catastrophe.
I am hoping to be a resource to people who would like to consider how they could leave the US. A friend of mine is looking to leave with his wife for a few years.
I know that John Howard who is in France is also writing with advice for people who want to consider moving abroad. He also lived in Ireland.
https://leavingamerica.substack.com/archive?sort=new
Andra Watkins has a Substack from abroad as well. https://andrawatkins.substack.com/
All of us have insights into how one could leave.
I did not realize Andra Watkins was abroad. I haven't listened to her since the election due to having to adjust in box load reading... she's still there but I've been absorbed elsewhere. I think John Howard is one I just signed up to after your post, and I've red tagged this article (yours) so I don't lose it and can share it when needed. Thanks for your work.
Thanks for writing this! It’s very useful. My daughter is just entering high school, but I need to plan ahead.
KL please let me know if you have any questions.
Linda -- I thought you might find this CBC radio interview, from a couple of days ago, interesting....now even the professors are leaving the US!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn_dtBx0eLk
Thank you Liz. I know that someone mentioned concern about Timothy Snyder leaving for Canada last night on Ruth Ben-Ghiat's zoom call, and she said he and his wife have been quietly leaving for the last 2 years. I know he is in Europe a lot. Jason Stanley is leaving more recently. I get it. I also know that a lot of people are leaving quietly, because it is good to be out before you say anything under fascists. We always have friends and family to worry about if we are outspoken and raise the ire of the administration. All of the scientists I know are affected by this, even if they have their funding for now, it is going to be harder to get in the future, and it seems like it will come with strings. So, for academics, research may not be possible in the US. What do you do then?
Can't help but think of the song "This Is Not America", certainly not the America we all grew up withAnd used to admire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0H3dQnKiCM&ab_channel=SiljeNergaard-Topic
To add to your advice to US foreign students, here is a Boston Globe article with advice to colleges and universities about how to assist foreign students:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/10/opinion/student-visa-college-university-trump-ice/
Thank you. I really am of the belief that even fighting it should be done from outside of the country. I understand that US universities are worried about losing tuition money, and will probably all have to reduce their programs if they lose enough students. This is a secondary concern to helping young people lessen the trauma, which I think might have been avoided to some extent if Universities had not told everyone to come back before Trump was inaugurated because one did not know what would happen. I knew what would happen because Trump was telling us. I considered it very irresponsible to endanger them like this. I think Universities should have been telling them that they should take the semester off or prepare to do their semester from abroad. Another thing that these universities can do is make campuses in other countries available if they have them.
If American Universities are to continue to teach the curriculum they have been teaching, which is not the racist Christian Nationalist curriculum that the Trump administration intends, then they should all eschew all federal dollars, and expand into other countries. I know the University my family works for has a campus in Paris, and in one in Hong Kong. This is the direction that American Universities might need to go.
I think how foreign students are to proceed also depends on what stage of life the foreign student is in - for undergraduates, who have not yet made the US their home, it makes sense to think seriously about studying elsewhere, being safe, avoiding trauma. But many older foreign students have been in the US for many years, and have their communities, their professional and personal networks in the US and it becomes is a much more complicated decision.
And I see your point about how universities telling students to return before Trump was inaugurated was, certainly in retrospect, short sighted and selfishily financial too.
Yes. It is individual. My husband has been living in the US for a long time, not from being a student, but from being a post-doc. However, whatever stage you are in, you are not going to be growing or developing in any way you want to from inside an ICE prison. This is me being clear. Reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr has made me always look at the signs when it is time to go. Her family did, and others they knew did not believe Hitler's Germany would get as bad for Jews as it did. Her family survived. Others they knew did not.
I'm not going to disagree with you that these are very, very dangerous times, and people need to take all of what is going on with eyes as open as they can be. PS I just ordered the book from my library!!