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Why US feels like North Korea: Ground report from frontlines of Trump's crackdown

Why US feels like North Korea: Ground report from frontlines of Trump's crackdown

Time of India01-05-2025

Why US feels like North Korea: Ground report from frontlines of Trump's crackdown
Chidanand Rajghatta
TNN
May 2, 2025, 00:09 IST IST
With fear and silence stalking US college campuses, universities in Moscow and Beijing could well be more open
Fear stalks American college campuses . It is not just students shying away from speaking out, but academics and administrators, too. At the George Mason University in Northern Virginia, hosting more than 4,000 international students out of 40,000 on its 677-acre campus, no one wants to speak on record about the 15 foreign students at the varsity whose F-1 visas have been scrubbed, though both students and faculty know about the revocation.
The Dean's office directs you to the Human Resources Office, which directs you to the Student and Academic Affairs department, which sends you to the Office of International Programs and Services. Finally, Melanie Belog, an executive director in the university's Communications office, a former journalist herself, forwards a statement from college president Gregory Washington that acknowledges the revocation of 15 international students' visas but says 'these terminations have occurred without involvement of or prior notice to the university'. More of that later.

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