In the halls of US universities and research labs, one question has become increasingly common as President Donald Trump tightens his grip on the field: whether to move abroad.”Everybody is talking about it,” JP Flores, a doctoral student in genetics at the University of North Carolina, told AFP.The discussion was thrust into the spotlight after Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, a specialist in fascism, announced he was taking a new post in Canada over the Trump administration’s “authoritarian” bent.”I made the decision when Columbia folded,” he told CBS News. “I made it in a split second.”Columbia University, which the Trump administration has threatened with major funding cuts, said it agreed to take steps to rein in pro-Palestinian protests, among other actions.”It is not the time to cower and fear,” said Stanley, who added there was “absolutely no doubt that the United States is an authoritarian country.”With similar threats lodged by Trump against other universities, many researchers are worried about the future of academic freedom in the United States.Coupled with the administration’s broad cuts to federal funding, some fear the country’s research field, once viewed as the envy of the world, may be losing its luster.More than 75 percent of scientists are now considering departing the country over Trump’s policies, according to a survey of over 1,600 people published in late March by the journal Nature.”The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers,” the journal said.- ‘Surreal’ – “People are just so scared,” Daniella Fodera, a Columbia PhD student whose research grant was cancelled, told AFP.Amid the uncertainty, several academic institutions in recent weeks have announced a hiring freeze and a reduction in the number of graduate student positions.”That’s definitely messing up the academic pipeline,” said Fodera, a biomechanics student.Karen Sfanos, head of a research lab at Johns Hopkins University, said: “It’s kind of a surreal time for scientists because we just don’t know what’s going to happen with funding.””There’s not a lot of clarity, and things are changing day by day,” she said, noting it is hitting the “youngest generation” relatively hard.Fodera, who studies uterine fibroids — benign tumors affecting many women — said she has begun to “actively look at positions in Europe and abroad for continuing my post-doctoral training.”- ‘Generational loss’ -With mounting concerns among US researchers, several European and Canadian universities have launched initiatives to attract some of the talent, though they may not need to try too hard.”I know researchers already that have dual citizenship, or who have family in Canada, in France, in Germany, are saying, ‘I think I’m going to go live in Germany for the next, you know, five years and do research there,'” said Gwen Nichols.The physician, a senior leader at a blood cancer research group, warned the possible exodus could make the United States “lose our dominance as the biopharmaceutical innovation leader of the world.””We’ll see the problem 10 years from now, when we don’t have the innovation we need,” she added.Genetics researcher Flores agreed, saying “it has become quite clear that there’s gonna be a major brain drain here in American research.”One young climate researcher, who requested to remain anonymous, said she had started the process of attaining EU citizenship and that colleagues in Europe “have all been extremely sympathetic to the situation.”But she noted that those with limited resources, like many recent graduates, would be the least likely to be taken on by European institutions and may decide to drop out of science altogether.”This is a generational loss for science across all disciplines,” she warned.

The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a victory on Monday by lifting a lower court order barring the deportation of undocumented Venezuelan migrants using an obscure wartime law.But the nation’s top court also said that migrants subject to deportation under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act must be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal.The 5-4 decision by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to resume deportations for now that had been blocked by a federal district court judge.Trump invoked the AEA, which has only previously been used during wartime, to round up alleged Venezuelan gang members and summarily deport them to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador.Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said that their clients were not members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.The Republican president, who campaigned on a pledge to expel millions of undocumented migrants, welcomed the top court’s ruling in a post on Truth Social.”The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump said. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”District Judge James Boasberg issued temporary restraining orders barring further flights of deportees under the AEA after planeloads of Venezuelan migrants were sent to El Salvador on March 15.The Supreme Court lifted Boasberg’s orders but mostly on technical grounds related to venue — that the group of Venezuelan migrants who sued to prevent their removal are in Texas while the case before Boasberg was brought in Washington.”The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” the justices said, leaving the door open to possible further challenges to the legality of using the AEA to be heard in lower courts.- ‘Important victory’ -At the same time, the Supreme Court made it clear that migrants subject to deportation under the AEA, which has only been used during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, are entitled to some form of due process.”AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act,” the court said.”Detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal,” it said. “The only question is which court will resolve that challenge.”Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed suit against the deportations, said the Supreme Court’s ruling that deportees were entitled to due process was an “important victory.”Chief Justice John Roberts and four other conservative justices voted to lift the district court order’s temporarily barring the deportations using the AEA while the three liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, dissented.”The President of the United States has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning.”Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another liberal, said “the Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this.”The Trump administration has used images of the alleged Tren de Aragua gang members being shackled and having their heads shaved in the Central American prison as proof that it is serious about cracking down on illegal immigration.

It was Christmas Eve when multiple new Instagram followers slid into Jorell Melendez-Badillo’s DMs, all with the same question: would the historian be interested in collaborating with Bad Bunny?”My heart dropped,” he told AFP. “I immediately said yes.”Bad Bunny, one of the globe’s biggest stars, was preparing to release his sixth studio album, “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” — “I Should’ve Taken More Photos” — a love letter to his home Puerto Rico.And the reggaeton artist born Benito Martinez Ocasio wanted Melendez-Badillo — who had recently published the book “Puerto Rico: A National History,” a study of the island’s colonial history and its political movements — to consult on the visualizers the megastar would release with his new tracks.The release date was January 5 — less than two weeks after Melendez-Badillo was brought in.”I had promised my partner, my kid, my therapist, that I was going to leave my computer behind,” he laughed, saying at the time they were vacationing in Portugal. But when Bad Bunny calls, you answer.Melendez-Badillo said he first spoke with a producer who explained the album’s concept: an affirmation of Puerto Rican identity and culture in relation to continued colonialism and displacement (The Caribbean archipelago has been a US territory since 1898, following centuries of Spanish colonial rule.)The project “centers marginalized people,” Melendez-Badillo said. “Benito was really interested in, for example, highlighting the history of surveillance and repression in Puerto Rico.”The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor wrote 74 pages of notes by hand, eventually typing them up and turning them in by New Year’s Day, having communicated with Bad Bunny over voice notes transmitted by associates of the artist.The slides accompanying Bad Bunny’s infectious, wildly popular new songs that feature salsa and percussive plena are power-point style and text-heavy, but still an accessible crash course.To date, the visualizer for the smash lead single “Nuevayol” has received some 58 million views — it’s centered on the creation of the first Puerto Rican flag — and there are 16 more visualizers beyond that, with views on sites like YouTube totaling in the hundreds of millions.”As academics, your books are only read by your students,” he laughed. “A few colleagues write reviews.”And while he aims to “bring history out of the ivory tower,” Melendez-Badillo said “never in my life did I think it was going to be at this magnitude.”- ‘Complexity of Puerto Ricanness’ -Melendez-Badillo said he’s received snapshots from clubs where his visualizers are projected: “They’re drinking and dancing, and there’s like, freaking history in the background. It’s surreal.”It’s also a vital teaching tool, the professor said.Bad Bunny’s album has highlighted how little Puerto Rican history is taught in the island’s public schools, many of which have shuttered in recent years in the wake of a crippling debt crisis and devastating hurricanes.His visualizers are Spanish only: they’re educational for anyone, but ultimately, they speak to Puerto Ricans.”He was interested in these histories being read by people in the projects and the working class neighborhoods,” Melendez-Badillo said.Bad Bunny’s no stranger to politics: he’s been a vocal participant in Puerto Rican elections and movements.The artist also weighed in this past US presidential election, supporting Democrat Kamala Harris after a speaker at a Donald Trump rally disparaged his homeland.Bad Bunny has made multiple short films that illuminate issues in Puerto Rico including endemic power outages, tax laws benefiting foreigners, and displacement, both physical and cultural.”We’ve seen Benito grow in the spotlight,” the professor said. “He is more aware of being a political subject and of using his platform to amplify those conversations.”The history lessons in “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” extend to its celebration of traditional Puerto Rican sounds and rhythms.And it’s brought positive visibility to a place too often viewed through a lens of suffering in moments of disaster.Those media cycles rarely “allow for Puerto Ricans to speak for themselves,” Melendez-Badillo said. “It reproduces these very problematic colonial tropes.”With the new album, Bad Bunny flips that narrative.”It’s forcing people to reckon with the complexity of Puerto Ricanness” with nuance, Melendez-Badillo said.And, crucially, it’s eminently danceable, he added with a smile: “The perreo songs are my favorite.”