Tyler McBrien

#ScholarSunday Thread 236 Published on August 3, 2025

August is here, and with it my 236th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ +

americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...

Thanks to @americanstudier.bsky.social for including our article in this week's #ScholarSunday 🧵.

Who Is the Administrator of Alligator Alcatraz? @annabower.bsky.social

“Not since the McCarthy era have we seen immigrants subject to such an intense campaign of speech repression,” says @ramyakrishnan.bsky.social. Good overview of the history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the U.S. and its chilling effects in @lawfaremedia.org.

Link to the full report here: www.washingtonpost.com/documents/b2...

From this piece in @washingtonpost.com — www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimates that DOGE "generated at least $21.7 billion in waste across the federal government, despite its ostensible goal of eliminating government waste," noting this amount could've covered the rescissions package twice—with $2.9 billion to spare

The Trump Admin’s Embrace of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation The targets, rhetoric, and legal justifications of ideological exclusion and deportation may change over time, but the motivation—suppressing dissent—remains the same.

@juliarosekraut.bsky.social and @tylermcbrien.com explain the history and evolution of ideological exclusion and deportation as a tool of political repression in the United States. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

Quinta Jurecic in the Atlantic: When, in late November, the president-elect announced that he would pick Bove to help run the Justice Department, Bove was best known for his role as a member of Trump's criminal-defense team. Even so, his résumé seemed relatively normal for an appointee of the new administration. Over the course of the New York hush-money trial in spring 2024, he'd appeared regularly in the Manhattan courtroom alongside Todd Blanche, whom Trump would later nominate as deputy attorney general. Bove was a capable litigator with a light touch in front of the judge that seemed at odds with his dour appearance: a shaved head and a long saturnine face that, together with his dark suit, led some journalists watching the trial to joke about his resemblance to Nosferatu.

Do lifetime appointments apply to the undead?

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Just to reiterate: What this administration is doing right now is orders of magnitude more dangerous for academic freedom and free speech than anything the right has spent the last 30 years complaining about.

Headline of article "The Trump Admin's Embrace of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation" with picture of protest of Mahmoud Khalil's arrest

NEW - Delighted to join @tylermcbrien.com in writing this piece for @lawfaremedia.org. 🗃️

The article includes:

Mahmoud Khalil case & updates

Legislative History of Foreign Policy Provision

Use of Social Media Vetting to ideologically exclude

AAUP Trial on ideological deportation

Link Below ⬇️

Read "The Trump Admin’s Embrace of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation" by me and @juliarosekraut.bsky.social here: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

For @lawfaremedia.org, @juliarosekraut.bsky.social and I dive deep on the past, present, and future of ideological exclusion and deportation to suppress dissent in the wake of the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and others.

Link below 🔽

Opinion | The Epstein Conspiracy Is the Horror Story of Our Age The conspiracy theory captures our anxieties about how power really works, but the boring version might say more.

My hot take is that the Epstein files will reveal what we already know about the criminal system: lazy cops, incomplete paperwork, unscrupulous prosecutors, an uncaring system happy to ignore the hard work of actually helping victims.
www.politico.com/news/magazin...

State Dep't officials asked who, exactly, can qualify for the Trump administration's South Africa refugee program.

The answer, emailed days later by a top department official, was that program is intended for white people.

www.reuters.com/world/africa...

Read the 2025 "Shadow Report to Congress on Section 5 of the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018" in full here: drive.google.com/file/d/1MkB_...

NEW: Every year, the Elie Wiesel Act requires the president to report to Congress on how the government is preventing mass atrocities. This year, that report never came.

In its absence, at least 10 former US federal employees who worked on atrocity prevention released a Shadow Report.

cfce73 b6a83776d0414519997d45d06243f067

Here's a link to the administrative claim against the Department of Homeland Security filed by Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, the first claim from one of the 252 Venezuelan men sent to CECOT in March.

Rengel seeks $1.3 million in damages under the FTCA.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

MORE: Judge Paula Xinis, who presides over Abrego’s civil case in Maryland, bars the government from taking Abrego into ICE custody in Tennessee following his release from criminal custody.

He must be returned to Maryland on an order of supervision.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Are those barbaric memes that DHS is constantly posting getting you down? Here's a palate cleanse: wholesome memes from the National Institute of Standards and Technology

www.nist.gov/education/me...

As @annierau.bsky.social points out, he most definitely has drawn pictures. Quite a few it seems.

It's time

Summer Reading Campaign Get The Dial's exclusive summer reading list with 50+ global book recommendations. Support independent literary journalism with a $50 donation.

Campaign link here: www.thedial.world/summer-readi...

I recommended my favorite travel memoir—"The Way of the World" (originally "L'usage du monde") by Nicolas Bouvier—for @thedialmag.bsky.social's fundraiser-cum-summer reading list.

It's truly a wonderful and eclectic list, but you'll have to donate at the link below to get access!

ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court ICE attorneys fighting to deport immigrants are able to obscure their identities — no masks required.

Lawyers for ICE are increasingly hiding their identities in court. This is completely unprecedented.

“We’re not really doing names publicly,” said Judge ShaSha Xu — after stating her own name and those of the immigrants and their lawyers.

theintercept.com/2025/07/15/i...

More signs posted today inside the State Department read:

"HISTORY WILL REMEMBER WHAT WAS LOST HERE"

"You have saved so many lives"

"IF YOU SAY YOU LOVE FREEDOM BUT DON'T CARE IF IT APPLIES TO EVERYONE THEN WHAT YOU REALLY LOVE IS PRIVILEGE"

Signs posted today inside the State Department read:

"Colleagues, if you remain: RESIST FASCISM, Remember the oath you vowed to uphold"

"Here sat America's experts on democracy, human rights...and more. You've just released them and hundreds of their colleagues into the wild"

Reuveni: guess its find out time on the "fuck you" Colleague: Yup. It was good working with you. Reuveni: the first el sal flight lands in an hour so says flightaware Colleague: Well maybe they land and drop off all the title 8 people.

Text: These messages occurred after a period of non-responsiveness from Mr. Reuveni's supervisors described in Mr. Reuveni's June 24, 2025 disclosure, beginning at the last paragraph of p. 10 through the end of the first paragraph on p. 12, and also after Mr. Reuveni reviewed public information that two flights had landed in Honduras by 8:10 pm. The messages corroborate the statement on p.7 of Mr. Reuveni's June 24, 2025 disclosure that, "Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts 'fuck you' and ignore any such court order." Reuveni: Guess we are going to say fuck you to the court Super Colleague: Well Pamela Jo Bondi is Not you

NEW: Newly released documents corroborate whistleblower's allegation that Emil Bove said DOJ might have to say “fuck you” to court orders enjoining the removal of migrants under the Alien Enemies Act

The documents show the whistleblower alluding to the "fuck you" comment in texts w/ DOJ colleagues:

These documents contain numerous disturbing details that not only corroborate the whistleblower’s claims but also highlight DOJ’s efforts to mislead a federal court and disregard its orders.

READ THE DOCS HERE: www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

AND HERE: www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

I couldn't agree more.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...