PhD Timeline
80 comments
·April 28, 2025antonly
saagarjha
Every year I spend some time with PhD students from my alma mater (we play CTFs) and it's always a good opportunity to see how their research is going, or what grants they've been getting, or which conference they're trying to frantically submit to.
They're still doing research, and the funding hasn't completely dried up. But a lot of the people I talked to were international students, and the gallows humor of being deported was palpable. Made a slightly illegal turn in the van? Better make sure the cops didn't see you, or ICE is going to deport you back to where you came from. Hiring is completely frozen, and there is talk of potentially cutting down or "asking" students to graduate early. I overheard one of the professors talking to another about their students who were in limbo because their visas had been cancelled. It's pretty grim.
foobarbecue
Did you mean wariness?
ayhanfuat
Also see "French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...).
anonfordays
That was fake news:
"The French researcher in question was in possession of confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory— in violation of a non-disclosure agreement—something he admitted to taking without permission and attempted to conceal.
Any claim that his removal was based on political beliefs is blatantly false."
ayhanfuat
It is hard to believe a French researcher, traveling from France to the US, was in possession of confidential information he retrieved from a US national lab. It is harder to believe they didn't arrest him for this.
leereeves
I wonder how many of the media sources who reported the original story will also report the correction with equal coverage.
trhway
> ...messages discussing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists had been found. The researcher was reportedly then accused of writings “that reflect hatred toward Trump and can be described as terrorism”.
Everything that doesn't fit official government line is an extremism and terrorism. It has been that way in Russia and other authoritarian countries. Looks like that is getting imported into US, and without any tariffs at that. I'm perplexed though why does the US population want it (i live in CA, and that doesn't help understanding the whole US population), especially giving that any of those authoritarian countries is also orders of magnitude worse than US economy-wise (even the economy poster-child China has per capita GDP just 1/7th of that of US).
foobarbecue
> why does the US population want it
The same reason the school bully and his entourage wants see your lunch thrown on the ground. It's jealousy, it's tribalism, it's establishment of a power hierarchy. It's evil.
Our country has been taken over by a cult of cruelty and othering.
yapyap
> This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy
So they check all your messages at the border? Do they dump your entire phone or what is happening there?
pastage
This has been happening since before 9/11 how much I do not know. I never travel with digital gear to the US. I do not work in any secret capacity but my employer prohibits me from brining any work equipment through the border to the US.
admissionsguy
[flagged]
danieldk
Am I a lone crazy person? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Well, at least maybe your moral compass needs some calibration? I typically go out of my way to avoid personal attacks here. But it's hard to do so if the reaction to "people get detained and locked up for more than a month with bad medical care" is: "oh great, no more far left".
We not should celebrate a slide into authoritarianism, which always starts with bullying weakly-positioned groups first, but the government has already floated with the idea of deporting Americans (and apparently already deported American kids [1]).
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/27/us/children-us-citizens-d...
Jolter
Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
I don’t even know where to start with that. Consider whether you have a broken moral compass or something. Consider moving to an actual dictatorship country instead of supporting the introduction of dictatorship in a new country?
Edit: beaten to the “moral compass” thing. Well said, above.
EvgeniyZh
> Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
Do you think that the whole "diversity statement" and DEI shticks were exactly tools of removal of people with different political views from academia?
US academia political activity is what made it attractive target for Trump administration. I'd prefer that it didn't happen or that US didn't have a president willing to destroy the academia, but I'd also prefer that universities would act as non-partisan entities. I think Boaz Barak summarized it well [1]
On a separate note, US searching/detaining/refusing entrance to other countries' nationals happened all the time [2,3,4,5,6,7], I don't think it's newsworthy or should change your position on visiting US.
[1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/28/barak-harvard-m...
[2] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/us-entry-horror-...
[3] https://firrp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/September-2024_...
[4] https://immigrantjustice.org/press-releases/three-travelers-...
[5] https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-us-keeps-mistakenly-depo...
[6] https://www.propublica.org/article/can-customs-border-protec...
[7] https://thepienews.com/indian-government-gives-student-trave...
iugtmkbdfil834
Is it not what effectively was argued for during covid years?
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tguinot
In the UK they put their own citizens in jail for a Facebook post which is an order of magnitude worse than revoking the visa of a foreigner who comes to your country to tell you what politics your country should adopt.
They also deny visitors visas of academics on the basis of political views.
The UK is objectively worse.
theyinwhy
Well, inciting violence is a crime in many countries. Next time, please show your sources so that everyone knows you are defending a racist: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c703e03w243o.amp
tguinot
On the top of my head I can cite the cases of Lee Dunn or Billy Thompson who didn't call for violence and these are not the only ones. Please learn about the UK.
Slamidan
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Boltgolt
The US can also put anyone in jail for a Facebook post, or as in this case a single student newspaper article
Jolter
Well, two down, then. That leaves about, oh I don’t know, 207 countries with universities. Probably at least a hundred of those are functioning democracies where you can expect rule of law and due process.
tguinot
Sorry to disappoint you but people in Europe don't have as much free speech as in the US especially in the press.
In European countries like France or Switzerland you get sentenced to prison time for describing someone as "a fat lesbian".
Free Speech is much better in the US.
ActorNightly
Nah.
This whole "freedom" thing is what led to Trump administration, which routinely thinks they are above the law, being in power. And if you think its not that bad, just wait till 2028 when Trump will coup the government like he tried in 2020 except this time he will succeed.
People need to be on a tighter leash. And as for who holds the leash, nobody = the leash is the law, and anyone who tries to circumvent it gets punished. Nobody is above it, even if you feel like the law is unfair - work to get the law changed if that is what you want.
tguinot
I've been reading hilarious comments about what Trump will do since 2016.
I remember the "gays will be in death camps" from reddit.
apexalpha
I don't know if Americans are grasping how much the attitude is changing outside of the US.
My mom has booked a multithousand dollar vacation on a cruise set to depart from Florida. They would only be there for a few days.
They are still asking the company to just fly to the first non-US stop and then board. And crazy enough the company might actually accomodate this since hundreds of people have inquired according the agent she talked to.
People really distrust the US government now.
As we Dutch say: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.
ekms
I think the perception of America was just as critical, or even moreso, during the GWB presidencies and iraq war. (I imagine nixon and the vietnam war were thought of similarly). There's a tendency for people to have some historical amnesia and think of trump as qualitatively different somehow. But I can assure you that GWB was truly reviled especially in northern europe metro areas, and Americans was viewed then similarly to how it's viewed now.
koonsolo
I'm old enough to know, and no, it's not the same. Bush never claimed that Canada is a US state, never hinted at invading Greenland, never repeated Russian propaganda.
We thought the Gulf War 2 was under false pretenses of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", sure. But what Trump is doing is plain betrayal of trust amongst allies.
disqard
It's gaslighting via ye olde "both sides" reasoning:
"Oh, don't worry, all the politicians are corrupt liars, so the current administration is just like the preceding ones. Nothing to see here!"
Thank you for calling this out!
mjburgess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%... -- for the student mentioned in the caption
pastage
Nationalism is not compatible with freedom.
When I was young I thought liberties that we viewed as important were something that was provided to all. That it should not matter where you come from. I still think everyone should strive for this.
bmn__
> Nationalism is not compatible with freedom.
That's false. The way you phrased this is that I just need one example to debunk, I'll gladly take the easy win. Here it is: https://freedomhouse.org/country/mongolia
wesselbindt
So at what point does it become acceptable to call a spade and spade and point out that this is fascism?
theyinwhy
Now.
wesselbindt
Nope, not yet, this post dropped three pages in 5 minutes. I guess someone's feefees got hurt.
sn9
It's on the front page now.
Don't confuse a snapshot for a trajectory.
yodon
> Nope, not yet, this post dropped three pages in 5 minutes. I guess someone's feefees got hurt.
Please refrain from nonsense HN conspiracy theories. The HN algorithm is and has always been designed to encourage good behavior on the site, favoriting the overall health of discussion on the site over any particular topic and penalizing pages where participants interact poorly. Yes, that means many important topics get automatically downranked because the participants in those topics disagree on the topic strongly enough to engage in upvote/downvote wars and other signals of bad conversational behavior. That is an acknowledged result of the long term algoritm design.
HN has been very clear over the years that their primary goal is for people to debate interesting topics well here, and the overall quality of discussion on HN compared to other sites suggests there is some validity to their approach.
spellboots
I worked for US companies for over a decade, and travelled there multiple times a year. I worked remotely from my home in the UK as a software engineer and and CTO, including as CTO of a YC startup for a number of years.
I would not travel to the US any longer, it's just not worth the risk. From the outside it's how I imagined Germany looked in the mid 30s, but streamed live in HD.
For context I'm a white British man, and whilst I wouldn't go out of solidarity and disgust at the treatment of people who don't look and talk like me even if I wasn't worried about myself, right now I would also be seriously concerned for my own safety. I wouldn't trust rogue ICE agents to know exactly what things are permissible on an ESTA visa waiver vs B1 vs B1 in lieu of H1B.
Genuinely and without hyperbole, if you have the ability and means to leave for a different country, you should consider it in case it becomes something you can no longer do in the future; even if you don't believe your government will prevent you, I suspect other countries will start making it a lot more difficult for US citizens to get visas in the coming years.
CogitoCogito
Every American should feel ashamed by this national idiocy.
tunnuz
Honest.
echelon
Xkcd hasn't been very political, but this is appropriate.
Regardless of your political persuasion, what's happening to folks here legally is doing irreparable harm to our country's image and standing.
We need researchers to remain competitive. China is putting out more advanced research in key sectors than we are. Most of the papers in AI that I read are from Chinese institutions.
If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
And on the topic of free speech that predicated all of this: it's great that we get so offended by what other people say. It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is. Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn. If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
iugtmkbdfil834
First generation immigrant here so I feel entitled enough to respond.
<< If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
The issue has been gamed well by the political class. It does not help that 'both sides' use language to further confuse the issue and score points with their chosen audiences.
That said, why.. or even how, would an American worker compete on salary. That, you will find, is the source of most of the discontent. That the target of that discontent is amusingly misdirected is quite anothe matter altogether and speaks only to the strength of propaganda apparatus in US.
<< It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is.
True.
<< If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
Also true.
ActorNightly
>Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn.
This is with the underlying ideal that neither side has the right answers. Which was true back in the era of sane politics.
Except this doesn't really apply anymore, as we know that one side is objectively stupid, and with the modern age, there is zero to none fact checking or social responsibility.
In the same way that there are restrictions to free speech in yelling fire in a crowded movie theater, there absolutely should be restrictions on anything having to do with the popular right talking points, with appropriate jail time, as those fall into the same category now, with people taking Ivermectin for Covid and dying because Joe Rogan told them so.
And if the laws are in place, and the wrong party ever takes charge again and uses those laws against you, that should be a motivator to not let that party take hold in the first place.
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KikoHeit
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KikoHeit
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ackbar03
oh wow lol, did not expect that.
Speaking as an academic from the UK, there has been a growing sentiment of weariness about spending time in the US. From hallway jokes about getting snatched at the border and spending two weeks in detention camps, to people re-evaluating their conference and career choices to avoid the US, this marks a major shift in the mindset of the current generation of PhD students and early-career academics that will probably have untold implications for long-term research and innovation horizons...