According to three lawsuits filed recently in Baltimore County District Court, Vistant owes each of the foreign aid workers about $20,000 to $29,000 for work they did before the end of January, when the Trump administration froze USAID funding and issued stop-work orders.
Vistant’s founder, Walter Barnes III, of Potomac, is among four men who pleaded guilty in a decade-long bribery scheme involving USAID contracts. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Barnes resigned as Vistant’s president and chairman in 2023, according to federal documents, and the current CEO, George Washington, declined to comment in an email to The Baltimore Sun.
The contractors who sued Vistant are Alanna Shaikh, Amjad Hamza and Noor Majdalani. They say they were not paid for their work and expenses incurred in programs under contract to the company in December and January.
“It’s very clear people we relied on to do good work overseas are being really mistreated,” said Laura L. Dunn, a New York-based attorney representing the plaintiffs. “We’re sort of leaving them twisting in the wind.”
The suits note that the contractors received “stop work” orders on Jan. 27, which they complied with, but then weren’t paid for work and expenses they were already owed. Vistant terminated their email accounts and their access to the timesheet portal, the suits said.
According to one suit, filed earlier this month, a contractor was given less than a week to leave the job and housing in Morocco after the stop-work order, despite Vistant already having paid for the accommodations through June. The lawsuits also involved USAID programs in Yemen and Syria.
Emails from Vistant, included in the suits, show company officials saying they were trying to see how various directives and rulings in lawsuits challenging the USAID cuts would affect reimbursements to contractors. The company said it was reducing costs, cutting staff and expenses, and urged the contractors to be patient. At least one email from a Vistant senior vice president in April said the company had received “some partial payments” for “activity” prior to the stop-work order.
As the months went by and the contractors remained unpaid, their emails reflect growing desperation for the funds.
“I’m sure you’re aware we’re going through difficult times,” one contractor wrote in March, asking for “updates about the process … even if it’s bad news.”
“My housing situation makes this payment critical,” another contractor wrote in April.
The cases are part of the continuing fallout from the dismantling of the foreign aid programs, or as then-presidential advisor Elon Musk characterized it on his X social media platform, “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” The USAID cuts were felt deeply in Baltimore, home to several humanitarian groups, such as Catholic Relief Services, and global health programs at Johns Hopkins and its affiliates that had received funding from the agency.
The bribery scheme that Vistant was named in was uncovered by USAID’s Office of the Inspector General in 2023 during the Biden administration and had been going on for about 10 years, according to the Justice Department.
The DOJ said that a USAID contracting officer, Roderick Watson, of Woodstock, agreed to receive bribes in exchange for using his influence to award contracts to a Florida man, Darryl Britt, who owned a company called Apprio. Vistant was a subcontractor to Apprio on one of the contracts received via Watson’s influence, the DOJ said, and eventually became a prime contractor.
Britt and Vistant’s Barnes paid bribes to Watson, often concealing them by passing them through Paul Young, of Columbia, another subcontractor, the DOJ said. The bribes also came in the form of laptops and cellphones, suite tickets to an NBA game, a country club wedding, down payments on houses and jobs for relatives, according to the DOJ.
The Justice Department said that while Vistant’s cooperation with the federal investigation was “initially delayed and limited,” it eventually began fully cooperating. The department decided that because the company accepted responsibility for its criminal conduct, and that paying a bigger penalty would threaten its continued viability, it would resolve the case with a deferred prosecution agreement and a civil settlement of $100,000.
In 2022, Vistant, then known as PM Consulting Group, was named the second fastest-growing private company by the Baltimore Business Journal, having tripled its annual revenue since 2019. It had 160 employees and made about $34.19 million in 2021, the Journal reported.
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060 or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>A boy in Florida posted several Russian Roulette videos of himself on Snapchat, spinning a revolver’s chamber, aiming the gun at his head and pulling the trigger. One day, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. His phone was nearby.
Those are among the claims made in hundreds of lawsuits filed by individuals, school districts and state officials against social media companies, alleging they purposely addicted children and teens to their platforms, allowed dangerous content and even messages from predators to reach them and created a mental health crisis of rising rates of suicide, depression and anxiety.
A suit by Harford County’s Board of Education will be among the first to go to trial when the cases, which have been consolidated into a sprawling proceeding in federal court in Northern California, begin rolling out as expected next year. School systems have claimed that they’re owed as much as tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in compensatory damages and even more in abatement costs for years of handling the harm caused by social media companies.
Harford Schools was chosen as one of six “bellwether” cases that will test the claims made in the multi-district litigation, or MDL. It’s an important role, attorneys say, to see how arguments on each side play to a jury, and perhaps prompt the social media companies to settle rather than go through trials.
“You want to be heard first,” said Rob Jenner, a Baltimore-based attorney who is not involved in the social media cases but has co-led other mass tort actions. “You’re representative of the others.”
Baltimore attorney Matt Legg, who represents Harford and some 80 other school districts in the litigation, said while he can’t speak to why the judge chose the six jurisdictions, the bellwethers are meant to reflect the diversity of the plaintiff group, which includes districts large and small, urban and rural and from every part of the country.
“It’s a cross-cutting issue,” said Legg, an attorney with Brockstedt Mandalas Federico. “School districts across the country have had incredible damages as a result of students becoming addicted to these platforms.”
In a more than 300-page complaint, school districts argue that companies including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Roblox, Discord, Snapchat and their parent companies have “intentionally induced young people to use their platforms compulsively,” borrowing techniques from “makers of slot machines and tobacco products.
“Because children’s and adolescents’ brains are not fully developed … they are uniquely susceptible to addictive features in digital products and highly vulnerable to the resulting harm,” the suit claimed. “‘Likes’ have replaced the intimacy of adolescent friendships. Mindless scrolling has displaced the creativity of art, play, and sport.”
Harford school board president Aaron S. Poynton said that despite coming from what he calls “the tech space,” he has come to see its “dark side.”
“There’s a massive addictiveness to how these algorithms work,” said Poynton, founder and CEO of Omnipoynt Solutions, a technology management consulting company. “This is a vulnerable population. Their brains are being re-wired. They can’t make reasoned decisions with judgment and wisdom that adults can make.”
Many Maryland school districts have joined the litigation, including Baltimore City and County as well as Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s and Frederick counties.
Baltimore City’s suit was one in a 12-district pool that underwent intensive discovery and depositions of school officials before the final six bellwethers were chosen. In addition to Harford, the test cases include districts in Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey and South Carolina.
Despite not being included in the initial wave, Joshua Civin, the city schools’ chief legal counsel, said officials “are going to monitor this first phase very closely” and look forward to making their case when the time comes.
Like other districts, the city has a new policy that bans the use cellphones and other devices during the entire school day that goes into effect this fall. But physically removing the devices from students’ hands is only part of the solution, Civin said.
“It’s important that we have a multi-faceted approach,” Civin said. “We need social medial companies to step up as well.”
‘The fuel’ igniting student conflicts
Schools have long wrestled with the fallout from students’ increasing reliance on social media.
“Oh my goodness, it’s become the most frequent thing I deal with,” said Rhonda Richetta, principal of City Springs Elementary/Middle School in East Baltimore.
Beefs will develop over something someone said to or about someone in a chat or message, she said, and suddenly entire groups are mad at each other.
“They’re braver on social media,” said Richetta, who is in her 19th year of leading the charter school. “There’s something about not being face to face with someone, you’ll say anything.”
She said she worries about how social media has made kids self-conscious about their looks, and they’ll take pictures or make videos repeatedly until they’re satisfied with how they come off.
“They see so much on social media, there’s such a focus on physical appearance,” Richetta said, particularly for girls. They’ll turn on their camera every 10 seconds and look at themselves and fix their hair constantly.”
Other school staff say they’ve contended with kids who are sleep-deprived from late-night scrolling and distracted during class by some ongoing drama or thread that they’re following — what Stacy Place Tosé, the city district’s chief of schools, calls “this cycle of constantly checking.”
Tosé said there’s a financial cost as well. Schools have had to hire additional social workers and counselors, add training for teachers and other staff and otherwise contend with the anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and even increased violence that can erupt from social media addiction.
“It becomes the igniter, the fuel that makes situations harder to resolve,” she said. “Social media has exacerbated a lot of things that have gone on with our young people.”
According to a defense brief in the court files, Baltimore City is claiming up to $91 million in compensatory damages and up to $2.9 billion in abatement costs. The district’s entire budget for fiscal year 2026 is $1.87 billion. Civin said the damage estimates reflect costs accrued over a period of time that dates back to 2017.
Harford County, which has about 38,100 students, about half as many as Baltimore City, is claiming up to $41.4 million in damages and up to $1.2 billion in abatement, according to the brief.
“Schools’ limited resources are pitted against Defendants’ virtually unlimited resources in that fight,” the districts’ complaint said. “This is not a fair fight, and despite considerable effort, schools are losing the battle.”
Looking to board the Big Tech ‘money train?’
The social media litigation is similar to the thousands of suits brought by jurisdictions against opioid manufacturers and distributors that ultimately led to tens of billions of dollars in settlements.
“School districts see the money train coming through town,” said Clay Calvert, a non-resident senior fellow with the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. “Here you have the major tech companies. They’re seen as loaded and flush with cash.”
Calvert, a professor emeritus of the University of Florida law and journalism schools, said the schools may face a “tougher sell” arguing that social media is addictive than the plaintiffs in the opioid cases did.
“It’s a behavioral addiction, like a gambling addiction, not a drug,” he said.
Plaintiffs may benefit from the current climate in which tech companies are viewed much in the same way as Big Pharma or Big Agriculture, Calvert said.
“Today, let’s face it, many people don’t like Big Tech,” he said.
And indeed, two years ago, much as his predecessors warned about the dangers of tobacco, obesity and gun violence, then Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory about the risks social media pose to “the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.” Murthy was appointed to the post first by President Obama and subsequently by President Biden.
Saying up to 95% of teens are on a social media platform, with a third reporting they use them “almost constantly,” the advisory raises concerns about how this affects their developing brains.
“This is a period when risk-taking behaviors reach their peak, when well-being experiences the greatest fluctuations … when identities and sense of self-worth are forming [and] brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions, and peer comparison,” the advisory said.
Studies have shown social media use is associated with symptoms of depression, poor body image and eating disorders, and exposes young people to bullying, harassment and explicit content, according to the advisory.
Social media companies may counter with arguments that other factors have led to children and adolescents suffering mental heath problems — such as the extended time that many of them spend away from friends when schools closed for the coronavirus pandemic.
Social media companies will also argue that they’ve improved safety in the years since some of the cases were filed.
Keeping predators, dangerous content at bay
Roblox, the giant video game platform where an estimated 40% of users are under 13, has added new safety features, including age estimation technology and a way for parents to monitor children’s activity. The company, a defendant in the MDL, had been under fire after reports of adults being arrested for abducting or abusing children they’d first contacted via the platform.
Recently, TikTok banned the #SkinnyTok hashtag after European regulators investigated the platform’s content promoting excessive weight loss.
CBS News reported this month that it created a TikTok account for a hypothetical 15-year-old girl and found that, after it viewed videos about weight loss and cosmetic surgery, similar content appeared in its “For You” recommendations.
“We know parents are worried about their teens having unsafe or inappropriate experiences online, and that’s why we’ve significantly changed the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens,” a spokeswoman for Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, said in an emailed statement to The Sun.
Introduced in September, the teen accounts automatically limit contacts and content for those under 16, unless parents permit a change to those settings. Parents can also have control over how teens use Instagram, and can limit the amount of time or period of the day that they’re on the platform, according to Meta. Additionally, the tech company said, Instagram is using AI to detect teens who may have lied about their age when creating an account, monitoring the kind of language they use, the age of their followers and whether, for example, someone has wished them a Happy 15th birthday.
Social media companies have made some improvements, but they are “baby steps in the right direction,” said Matthew Bergman, a Seattle-based attorney who represents more than 1,000 individuals who have claimed harm from social media.
He is heartened that many school districts have banned cellphones during the school day.
“I think it’s a very important part of the process,” Bergman said. “But it doesn’t absolve social media companies of their responsibilities.”
It is unclear when trials might begin in the MDL, although discussion at a recent case management conference suggested it might be next summer. U.S District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers has not yet said what order she’ll hear the bellwether cases. Harford Schools and other jurisdictions have agreed to have their trials in the Northern California district.
At the July 18 conference, lawyers discussed how much time they would need for motions and witnesses as Gonzales Rogers warned “these aren’t the only cases on my trial calendar.” She noted two other major tech cases before her, an anti-trust action against Apple and Elon Musk v. Sam Altman, pitting the Tesla and X chief against the OpenAI head.
With the high stakes involved, and the numerous lawyers representing both sides, the proceedings are already into their third year, with anyone’s guess of how much longer they may span or how contentious they will become.
Perhaps in acknowledgment of that, Gonzales Rogers said in an order last year that in at least one other MDL, the court had mandated lawyers to have dinner together before each case management conference.
“Reportedly, this helped foster better relations among counsel,” the judge’s order said. “This Court will not require the parties to do so, but nonetheless suggests that such informal interactions do serve a positive purpose.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>But rather than a bank calling in a mortgage, the foreclosure was filed by the Casa Laxmi Foundation, headed by Kiran Kulkarni, over the $2 million balance of a loan it made to the school, whose board is also headed by Kiran Kulkarni.
The circular transaction is just the latest twist for the 281-year-old academy, whose faltering finances in recent years threatened to close the institution. It was taken over by the Toronto-based businessman two years ago, went through and emerged from bankruptcy, and now faces a foreclosure auction, in which Casa Laxmi plans to be the successful bidder.
While Kulkarni told The Baltimore Sun the school “absolutely” will remain open and that going through foreclosure will allow him greater control over his plans for it, some fear a fate similar to what befell a school in New York that he had also taken over.
Manhattan Country School, similarly struggling and facing foreclosure, turned to Kulkarni this winter as the “last best hope” to save it, according to one parent whose children had gone to the school.
“We thought he was going to bolster the school,” said Melanie Kinard, whose children had attended Manhattan Country. “His first and only move was to submit to bankruptcy.”
Similarly to West Nottingham, Kulkarni proposed that his Casa Laxmi foundation lend the school as much as $8 million. But in May, the bankruptcy judge rejected the plan, in part because it stipulated that the Casa Laxmi loan would take precedence over the school’s existing debt to a bank, according to Bloomberg News.
According to bankruptcy court documents, the school’s parents’ association requested the resignation of Kulkarni and two associates who had become board members. In June, the bankruptcy case was converted from a Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation, and its just-concluded school year was its last. The progressive school, which was inspired by the civil rights movement and had a sliding tuition scale, would have celebrated its 60th birthday next year.
Kulkarni said what happened with Manhattan Country School differs from his stewardship of West Nottingham because the Maryland bankruptcy judge accepted his loan plan.
One attorney who is not connected to the West Nottingham case said it’s not unheard of for someone connected to a property to lend it money, and then to foreclose on that loan.
The Hillendale Country Club in Baltimore County had gone into foreclosure after it defaulted on a loan from a former member and was sold at auction in December to an anonymous buyer, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. The member had previously intended to buy the club but the deal fell through.
“It happens sometimes,” said Richard E. Solomon, a Linthicum Heights-based attorney who has written extensively on foreclosures. “Maybe [Kulkarni] wants to take control of the school.”
Kulkarni said a local bank had threatened a couple of months ago to foreclose on the West Nottingham property because it didn’t think the school would be able to make an upcoming payment. The Sun did not receive a response to an email sent to a representative of the bank.
Kulkarni said he decided that Casa Laxmi would instead foreclose on its loan, which, according to court documents, was given priority over the bank mortgage as part of the bankruptcy proceeding.
“The school is thriving right now,” Kulkarni said. “That’s why we said, let’s get this bank issue sorted out… so we don’t have to listen to anything, we don’t need to explain anything and let’s just continue with it.”
Kulkarni said he anticipates the auction will take place in several months and “will try very hard” to buy the school.
“Casa Laxmi will auction the property. Casa Laxmi will be the bidder on the property… and we hope that Casa Laxmi is the successful bidder,” he said. “Then they will rent it out to West Nottingham for a nominal rent of a dollar a year or something.”
Kulkarni said the school is at about its current capacity, with about 100 students. It is expanding in the coming academic year, and will begin accepting pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students, he said, adding grades over time to convert what is a high school into a pre-K to 12th-grade school.
About 40% of West Nottingham students are international, he said, and tuition for them is about $74,000 a year. Tuition is $64,000 for local boarding students, and $18,000 for day students, he said, and about half of the student body gets some sort of financial assistance.
Kilkarni remains a controversial figure among some alumni, who were caught off guard when they first learned two years ago that the school would be taken over by someone they’d never heard of, and who had previously tried unsuccessfully to open a boarding school in the Florida Panhandle.
He is the CEO of Kyko Global, which provides a range of financing services, including litigation. In fact, Kyko’s financing of a 2022 suit filed by an unsuccessful buyer of West Nottingham ultimately led Kilkarni to take control of the school.
Revenues and donations to West Nottingham had been declining for years , a situation that worsened with the COVID pandemic, when many international students weren’t able to travel abroad. Two years ago, the school’s trustees turned the board over to Kulkarni and Casa Laxmi, saying they would inject money into the struggling institution.
Ben Ross, an alum who graduated in 1996, said he initially thought Kulkarni’s takeover would be great for the school.
“When they first presented the deal, I thought this would be great,” he said. “They’re philanthropists, they have deep pockets.”
But now he and other alumni say they are not sure what the future holds for the school.
The foreclosure filing has generated more buzz than information among the West Nottingham community, which had “no clue” about what’s going on, said an alumna, Jeanette Cole.
“At this moment,” she said, “everyone I’ve heard from is saying, ‘What’s happened?'”
On Wednesday, the school’s president, John Guffey, sent an email to the West Nottingham community to share the news of Casa Laxmi foreclosing on the 100-acre campus with the intent of purchasing it.
“While ‘foreclosure’ often carries a negative connotation, in our case, it marks a critical and positive turning point – a step towards freeing WNA from financial entanglements that have hindered its growth, sustainability, and long-term vision,” Guffey wrote. He went on to say the school was moving ahead with its new kindergarten and pre-K program as well as two major infrastructure improvements that would allow the construction of new buildings, such as an art and theater center.
Guffey, who was brought in last year, said in an earlier interview that bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings are “very normal business strategies.
“We are in a better financial position today than we were last week when we filed [for foreclosure],” Guffey said. “Once Casa Laxmi takes over ownership and turns around the lease, we’ll be in an even better financial position.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>Police departments, media outlets, hospitals and even libraries across the state have been hacked, according to the Cyber Events Database compiled by researchers at the Center for Governance of Technology and Systems at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The database continually tracks publicly reported cyberattacks starting in 2014 and categorizes them in a number of ways, from geographic to motive (including financial, protest and espionage) to perpetrator (Russia and China, among them, although “undetermined” is the most common).
Here is a sampling of those struck, the date of the incident or when it was discovered or reported and what was known at the time.
Lockheed Martin, July 13, 2014
The aerospace giant was among the companies allegedly hacked by a Chinese businessman in a conspiracy to steal data on the F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft and an other programs, according to Justice Department charges. In this industrial espionage case, hackers collected data remotely from China from 2009 to 2013, the DOJ said.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Aug. 8, 2014
Hackers used phishing emails and other illicit entry attempts to deploy malware to the agency over the past three years, according to an inspector general report. The agency said a strong firewall and reporting by NRC generally detects and thwarts most such attempts.
Choice Hotels, Aug. 13, 2019
Hackers claim they stole 700,000 guest records from the Choice Hotels chain, which said the data, which included names, emails and phone numbers, were on a vendor’s server. The company said it would no longer work with the vendor.
The Jewish Federation of Washington, Aug. 4, 2020
Hackers stole $7.5 million from the nonprofit’s endowment fund and transferred it to international accounts. The initial breach came via the personal computer of an employee working from home as many were doing during the COVID pandemic.
Baltimore County Public Schools, Nov. 24, 2020
After what officials called a “catastrophic” ransomware attack on its technology, classes were halted for the 115,000 students who had been studying remotely during the pandemic.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Twitter account, Feb. 24, 2022
Apologizing for earlier “crazy tweets,” the prosecutor’s office said an employee noticed they couldn’t access the account and realized it had been hacked. It was restored the following day, and the office took the opportunity to promote security measures such as two-factor authentication log-ins.
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>A glut of government agencies, defense contractors and an oversized digital footprint make Maryland a top target for such attacks and espionage efforts, carried out in cyberspace by Iranian-aligned hacktivists or government officials.
“The Washington area in general, and Maryland specifically, are definitely in the crosshairs of spying agencies,” said Charles Harry, a former National Security Agency senior intelligence officer. “I would fully expect MOIS [Iran’s intelligence agency] to be actively working [espionage] campaigns against both U.S. government networks as well as contractors. I would bet an awful lot of money that that is happening right now.”
Other security professionals said Iran, reeling from the bombing and agreeing to a ceasefire in its war with Israel, may be gathering intelligence but not currently plotting a cyberattack.
Iran and those aligned with it have increased their cyber abilities in recent years, as Baltimore has witnessed.
In May, an Iranian national pleaded guilty in federal court to participating in an international ransomware and extortion plot that struck multiple cities and corporations, including Baltimore’s city government. The man, Sina Gholinejad, 37, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced in August.
The 2019 cyberattack knocked out city employee email accounts, credit card payment systems, and other government functions and ultimately cost the city more than $19 million.
Iran’s cyber force, initially formed to control information within the theocracy, has grown into one of the top 10 most comprehensive cyber powers, a tier below Russia, China and North Korea in threat level to the U.S., according to a 2022 report by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Attacks against the U.S. and Israel have been launched through government channels, proxies and government-backed hacktivists, with Iran heavily investing in cybersecurity and expertise since the 2000s. Targets include government agencies, critical infrastructure and private industries.
Iran views the investment as “a strategic advantage. It’s part of their national security strategy, and it has been for years,” used against the U.S. and Israel as well as adversaries in the Middle East, said Anton “Tony” Dahbura, executive director of Johns Hopkins University’s Information Security Institute and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy.
“This nation-state in the Middle East also happens to be one of the top cybersecurity attackers in the world,” and that’s less well known, Dahbura said.
Hackers have breached many Maryland companies and government agencies
For now, some security analysts believe the Iranian government is unlikely to launch a large-scale military attack on U.S. infrastructure — but they do expect something to take place.
“They need to save face, but don’t want to do anything that will get Trump angry,” said James A. Lewis, a senior advisor in economic security and technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They will look for something splashy to do politically but won’t do anything disruptive. It’s too dangerous.”
Intelligence officials have accused Iran of seeking to influence U.S. elections through the longstanding use of cyber operations. Three federal agencies in August said the Iranian government tried to interfere in last year’s presidential election.
The intelligence community “is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties, ” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in an announcement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or CISA.
Potential targets are everywhere
Even with the U.S.’s sophisticated cybersecurity, there’s reason for concern, Dahbura said.
“We have such a large attack surface,” he said. “We have so many systems, companies and organizations, large and small, with different degrees of cyber awareness and hygiene. There are plenty of targets, unfortunately, in the U.S.”
As a small state with a comparatively larger digital footprint, Maryland “has more exposure, which potentially puts us at a greater risk” of a cyberattack, said Harry, now director of the Center for Governance of Technology and Systems at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The state has military installations, a port and other critical infrastructure that could be targeted for attack, Harry said. But it also has access to sophisticated resources, such as the NSA, located at Fort George G. Meade with the military’s U.S. Cyber Command, that it could tap to stop the attack.
One potential vulnerability in the state is its local government systems, according to recently published research by Harry and colleagues.
Maryland’s percentage of counties that are vulnerable to certain cyberattack scenarios, such as a DNS misconfiguration or illicit access to government databases, are higher than many other states, according to the research.
Harry said if Iran “wanted to do something bad,” it wouldn’t necessarily focus solely on federal systems but perhaps also seek to attack or gain access to county- or state-level operations. While attacking, say, a county’s water billing system may not serve Iran’s purposes, he said, that could be used as an entry point to “swim” toward other parts of the infrastructure.
“It could be a pathway to something more disruptive,” Harry said.
A series of warnings
On Sunday, U.S. Homeland Security issued a “terrorism advisory” for the next three months, warning of threats.
“Low-level cyberattacks against US networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against US networks,” the bulletin said. “Both hacktivists and Iranian government-affiliated actors routinely target poorly secured US networks and Internet-connected devices for disruptive cyberattacks.”
Another warning popped up last Sunday on LinkedIn from a former CISA Director Jen Easterly. She noted Iran’s track record of retaliatory digital operations targeting water systems, financial institutions, energy pipelines and government networks. It’s unknown, she said, whether capabilities were damaged by recent Israeli strikes.
“In cyberspace, proximity doesn’t matter — intent, capability, and access do,” Easterly posted. “And Iran checks all three boxes.”
Iran’s capabilities are not as sophisticated as those in a country such as China, and thus its attacks are “more opportunistic and less strategic,” said Brandon Wales, a former CISA executive director.
Wales, now vice president of cybersecurity strategy for the security company SentinelOne, said Iranian actors would look for places with visible vulnerabilities “that they can easily exploit.
“Often these will be the same types of targets that will be at risk from criminal organizations that launch ransomware campaigns, for example,” Wales said. “And Maryland has some historic experience with that, with the ransomware attack against Baltimore.”
Wales cautioned against speculation, though, that Iran is plotting a cyberattack against the U.S. now, given the current ceasefire.
“I would draw a distinction between, do I think that there’s going to be an immediate attack in retaliation for the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities right now, given everything that’s happened? No,” Wales said.
“Do I think that over the longer term, over the next year plus, might Iran be more willing to operate against the United States in cyber, might it be more willing to target things inside the United States, knowing that they suffered at the hands of Israel and the United States in the current conflict?” he asked. “That’s always something we need to watch out for.”
Since 2020, law enforcement officials in the U.S. have stopped multiple, potentially deadly Iranian-backed plots in the U.S., Sunday’s Homeland Security bulletin said. It said foreign terrorist groups, such as HAMAS, Lebanese Hizballah, the Houthis and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for violence against U.S. assets and personnel in the Middle East after Israel l’s attack.
Analysts said bad actors in the cybersecurity arena look for the softest targets with maximum impact, scanning the Internet for targets.
“The most likely scenario if Iran chooses to send us a message is that they’ll attack something that we all use,” Dahbura said. “We as Americans are used to feeling safe.”
By sabotaging a water system, power grid, transportation network or food supply, hackers seek to grab attention, disrupt daily life and shatter a sense of safety.
In late 2023, after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Cyber Av3ngers, a group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hacked into U.S. water plants using Israeli-made equipment. While it failed to disrupt supplies, the breach prompted CISA to urge plants to boost security, with steps such as upgrading software, replacing passwords, strengthening multifactor authentication and improving network intrusion detection systems.
The risk of Iran launching retaliatory cyber attacks against the U.S. could increase over time, analysts said.
“That’s always something we need to watch out for,” Wales said. “We need to make sure that we’re prepared for both public and private sector entities across the country.”
Both governmental and non-governmental systems should take steps toward security, Wales said.
“Now is the time for preparedness, not panic about the threat that they pose,” Wales said. “Ultimately, the responsibility for the security of any network is its owner — that school, that hospital, that bank, that oil facility, that state government. There are things that they have to do to make sure that their networks are secure.”
Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com or (410) 332-6672 and Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060 or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>Literally, with his five dogs scampering underfoot at his Annapolis home on this particular day, but also cosmically: He believes extraterrestrials fly among us.
That Gallaudet is a retired rear admiral of the Navy and former acting and deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, arguably adds credence to a belief that, while not uncommon, tends to draw eye-rolls. Gallaudet has testified before Congress on the subject and is among a group of prominent scientists and former governmental officials pushing for legislation to increase disclosure of videos and other evidence of UFOs, or what is now more officially known as UAPs, for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
A graduate of the Naval Academy, Gallaudet has a master’s degree and Ph.D in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. After a public service career in which he served in posts including Oceanographer of the Navy and acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, he is now CEO of Ocean STL, a marine technology and management consulting company.
He and his wife, Caren, a Naval Academy graduate and former Navy diver, have three daughters, including one who just completed her first year at the academy. He’s written a memoir that is undergoing Pentagon review and is slated for publication later this year.
In an interview with The Baltimore Sun that has been condensed and edited for clarity, Gallaudet spoke about his close encounters with evidence of UAPs, the “palace intrigue“ of the first Trump administration and the cutbacks of the second, and other phenomena of the natural world.
What do you know about UAPs, and why would the government not come clean about them?
That they’re real and that the government has a trove of UFO videos and materials that they’ve been hiding from the public and Congress for decades. There’s a partial national security imperative to not reveal everything we know about UFOs, but to reveal the fact that we’re not alone in the universe … that I believe is something the American people should know. The American people have a right to know the nature of reality.
It’s just not good policy for the government to say, we can’t control our airspace or water space, because they occur in the water too. I know people who’ve seen classified video of these things underwater… They’re afraid of admitting that we are not in total control, and that is a whole paradigm shift, right?
What I do really know is that there’s more than just one type, species, whatever you want to call them, so it’s not just one ET… And we don’t know where they come from. It could be the other parts of the universe or another dimension.
Why did you write a memoir and title it, “Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership for Turbulent Times”
The Navy [is] an organization that imbues you with the values and characteristics of good leadership, from day one at the Academy. And so I learned a great deal about leadership in the Navy. That’s what the Navy does. I came to the civilian agency, which I loved because I was an oceanographer in the Navy and a meteorologist. I did so many things that NOAA does… I absolutely loved working there. And a lot of people came to me and they said, ‘Hey, Tim, you were a Navy admiral. No one’s ever taught me about leadership. What do you think about leadership? What would you do in this situation that happened to me?’
They wanted to know what it was, what it took to be a good leader, because they wanted to positively influence people. And that’s exactly what I want this book to do. I wanted to positively influence people who want to be better leaders, and I do it by sharing my story.
Half the book is about my Navy experience… And then it was about leading NOAA under Trump… It was not easy. That’s why the subtitle is, “Leadership for Turbulent Times.”
Did serving in the first Trump administration teach you something about leadership during turbulent times?
Absolutely, yes, trying to lead on issues and advance an issue, for example, about ocean stewardship, or coral reef conservation, or ocean mapping, improving America’s weather model, all those things — how to do it, and thread the needle of making it attractive to an administration that maybe might not be receptive to environmental and science applications, right? So, ultimately, the title, “Holding fast in heavy seas.”
And then there [were] times after January 6, you name it, where I thought about quitting, resigning in protest. There were many times, and I didn’t because I realized, well, if I left, there’d be a vacuum they’d fill with some political hack who had no appreciation for these people and their mission… There were times when I thought about leaving, and people asked me to stay because they felt like I was having a positive influence on them and the agency.
What do you think about the NOAA cutbacks under the second Trump administration?
Ultimately, I think government efficiency is good. Our national debt, the interest we’re paying on it, is exceeding the Pentagon’s annual budget. That’s not a very good place to be. We need to cut back. I do see a lot of inefficiencies in government… though I don’t think the cuts for NOAA are good, because they’re not targeted. They’re just across the board. And so you’re seeing a decline… the skill of the American weather model actually dropped in a metric… That’s bad, especially as hurricane season approaches.
These weather balloon data are not coming in because they don’t have the staff. So that’s just not a purposeful cut. So they didn’t think about what they were doing.
The employees of NOAA are dedicated, especially the Weather Service. They’re much like the military. They view their job as a no-fail mission, and I think that’s true, so they are going to do whatever it takes… When a bunch of tornadoes were predicted to occur, they just brought everybody in, and they worked long hours and they made it happen. So they’re going to do that. But the trouble is… the models need data, and right now that we can’t staff all the data collection that we want to do.
What are you anticipating for this year’s hurricane season, and are storms becoming more intense?
There’s a possibility that that’s an outcome in several climate projections. However, climate projections have a great deal of uncertainty… They depend on people, and people are even harder to predict than storms. When you look at what has happened compared to what has been projected, we’re not seeing all that doom and gloom… We have to be more disciplined and precise about how we talk about climate. I am no denier… but when we start getting so astray from the science… That’s why it’s so polarized.
Fossil fuels — we can’t wean ourselves off them by 2050. It would be irresponsible to do so because of our quality of life… India and China aren’t going to be doing this, so why would we act alone? There has to be a more deliberate thought process about energy transition. It should occur, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of human well-being.
What was it like for someone with your deep knowledge of oceanography and meteorology to lose your home in Hurricane Katrina while living in coastal Mississippi and based at Stennis Space Center?
That was a really traumatic thing for our family. We knew it was coming. And we had evacuated so many times that year that we kind of got jaded. We said, OK, let’s just put everything in the second story of our house — we know that the bottom [floor] will get flooded, the top will get shredded by wind, and maybe that stuff will stay safe. The Weather Service did a great job. We evacuated on time. Others in our neighborhood who didn’t die… It was like the arm of God just… took out every home and reduced it to a slab and pushed it all against Interstate-10, and we came back to that. And it was very emotional.
You were ready to walk away from the wreckage, but Caren wanted to search the rubble, where you found, amazingly enough, some family china and other treasures.
She still had some hope. I was so done. I felt violated. We found a lot of things, [including] my academy ring. And so that comes out when I was leading NOAA because that became my job… to inspire hope. I learned that from Caren.
]]>But after several days in his Jerusalem hotel’s bomb shelter, he and other travelers began a journey under secrecy and heavy guard — by bus to the coast, by luxury cruise ship to Cyprus, by air to Rome and New York and finally, on Thursday afternoon, by his parents’ car back to Baltimore.
“I feel like I’ve lived a year in a week,” said his relieved mother, Liz Minkin-Friedman.
The family is among those in the area whose ties to Israel are deep and for whom the escalating war with Iran hits particularly close to the heart.
Among them are those who participate in the now 22-year-old partnership that The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore has with the city of Ashkelon on Israel’s southern coast. The calls, texts, and WhatsApp and Facebook messages have been flying between the two cities this week.
“Everybody is connected to Baltimore, checking on us daily,” Sigal Ariely said via Zoom from her home in Ashkelon. “It’s truly our brothers from the other side of the ocean … thinking of us and caring for us.”
Ariely, the partnership’s director in Israel, said after numerous trips to Baltimore, she feels quite at home when she visits, a feeling duplicated for Baltimoreans who have traveled to Ashkelon and elsewhere in the country.
Friedman, who, along with other family members, has participated in programs in Ashkelon, was in Israel with his cousin, David Feig, this month on a Birthright visit, a 10-day trip many young Jewish adults take as part of a program to foster connections to the country.
The cousins, who are both students at the University of Maryland, College Park, are safe now, but Friedman said he can’t help but think of the Israelis he left behind.
“We were fortunate to be able to return home by cruise; they don’t have that option,” Friedman, a business student, said as his parents drove him home from JFK International Airport. “They remain there through difficult times, serving and protecting Israel.”
The two countries have been trading strikes since Israel launched an attack on Iranian nuclear and military structures a week ago.
“It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions,” said his father, Keith Friedman, a cardiologist in Columbia. When he talked to Eli during in subsequent days, he said, his son “didn’t sound worried, he sounded more exhausted, waking up two or three times a night to go to the shelter.”
After 11 trips to Israel, his mother said she has many close friends there who immediately wanted to pick up her son when the conflict with Iran began.
“They were telling me, ‘I’m going to go get your son,’” said Minkin-Friedman, a social worker. “I said, ‘No! Don’t leave your house.’”
These days, “transportation is scary,” Minkin-Friedman said, and the safest place is in a shelter, either in their own homes or nearby.
And indeed, the details of her son’s travel were kept secret by the trip organizers. Even Eli Friedman said he was surprised when they got to the Israeli coast and instead of a ferry, the Birthright group was ushered onto a cruise ship to Cyprus.
“I was very relieved to get home and to see my parents. People were pretty emotional at the airport,” he said.
“I’ve got my boy!” Minkin-Friedman said via text as the family traveled back to Baltimore.
Having visited Israel nearly a dozen times, she said she felt confident that the country and the Birthright program would get him home safely.
“I’m a firm believer that they’ve got this. I have such faith in the Israeli government and the [Israel Defense Forces] and Birthright themselves,” she said. “There is no other country that could handle it.”
It is, of course, a hard-earned experience from the long history of conflict in the Middle East.
Ashkelon, in particular, has come under heavy attack in recent years, given that it is about eight miles from the Hamas-controlled territory of Gaza. It’s come under fire during the continuing war that was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and even before that.
In May 2021, Ariely’s home was destroyed in a barrage of rocket fire from Gaza that killed two women and injured more than 90 people. While the government paid for most of the rebuild, Ariely said Baltimoreans generously assisted as well.
These days, Ashkelon is relatively safer, she said, with Iran focused more on the central part of the country. Multiple news photos show Israel’s Iron Dome defense system over Ashkelon intercepting missiles from Iran.
Ariely said she is grateful for how The Associated has helped provide mattresses, fans, refrigerators and games for children that are used in bomb shelters for those who don’t have a safe space in their own homes. Additionally, she said, many have taken advantage of another program funded by The Associated, mental health services for residents traumatized by living under constant threat.
She thinks of her 3-year-old granddaughter, who makes siren noises when she plays with her toys and reassures them, “Don’t worry, I’m going to take you to the shelter.”
Then there are the older kids, whose graduation celebrations “are not going to happen.
“We have kids here, it’s their 12th grade. So between COVID … and this war, they didn’t have even one year that was normal,” she said. “There are no proms, there are no final matriculations. They’re going to get their end-of-the-year diploma by email.”
Andrew Cushnir, president and CEO of The Associated, said that after more than two decades of partnership, the group is “sadly very practiced at providing support” to Ashkelon.
Cushnir said Ashelon is experiencing “a slight breather” at the moment from the frequent attacks from Gaza. But there is rarely true relief from threat, both in Israel and for those who care about the country from afar.
“I think everybody who feels a deep personal connection to Israel has been on pins and needles since October 7,” he said. “But now the attacks from Iran are a different level of magnitude.”
He is grateful for Israel’s defense system that protects the country from many but not all attacks. And indeed, a hospital in Southern Israel was struck Thursday, injuring 80 patients and staff, although many had previously been evacuated.
“Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” he said, “and all peace-loving people in the world.”
Gail Green, who co-chairs the Baltimore-Ashkelon Partnership, was part of a group that traveled to the Israeli city after the Hamas attacks in October to support and “bear witness” during a time that feels very much like the dividing line between before and after.
Prior, the Israeli defenses seemed “100 percent” impenetrable, she said.
“Oct. 7 destroyed that feeling of confidence,” Green said. “Everything was breached. It was a complete paradigm shift.”
While her group contributes about $260,000 a year to Ashkelon, the relationship goes beyond the monetary, she said.
“It’s the people-to-people connection,” she said. “And it goes both ways, they’ve been there for me as well.”
She remembers when the Key Bridge collapsed early that morning of March 26, 2024, and her phone quickly filled with calls and texts of concerns from Ashkelon.
“It means everything,” Green said. “It’s a family of the heart.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060 or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>It’s a legitimate fear these days.
A professor at another Baltimore university, who had landed at Dulles after a quick trip home this spring, was pulled aside, questioned, held overnight and put on a flight back to Africa the next day.
“I even left a burrito in the fridge,” said the professor, whose name and other identifying details are being withheld to avoid damaging his attempt to return to the U.S.
“My livelihood has been taken away,” the demoralized professor said via a WhatsApp phone call. “This is my life. I worked so hard to get here.”
International students and faculty have unwittingly been drawn into two of President Trump’s most fervid battles: against universities that he characterizes as hotbeds of “wokeness” and against foreigners, even if they are here legally.
The Trump administration has targeted the visas that allow them to study and conduct research in the U.S. in a series of on-again, off-again directives, creating fear, confusion and uncertainty over how or even whether they will be able to complete their coursework, programs and degrees.
Most recently, the focus has fallen on Chinese students. First, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that the administration would “aggressively revoke” their visas and enhance the vetting of future applicants. Then on June 11, President Trump seemingly reversed course, posting on social media that as part of a yet-unsigned trade and tariff deal negotiated with China, Chinese students could stay here after all. And on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said it is restarting the suspended process for foreigners applying for student visas, but all applicants will now be required to unlock their social media accounts for government review.
The State Department did not provide an on-the-record response to questions from The Baltimore Sun, but the Trump administration has repeatedly said in the past visas are a privilege and can be revoked at any time for multiple reasons. Students involved in pro-Palestine protests were targeted earlier in the year, for example, with Rubio saying every time he finds “one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.”
What the administration’s whiplashing pronouncements mean remains unclear.
In April, the visas of more than 1,500 international students, including those at Maryland universities, were canceled, although many were restored. Still, the Trump administration has continued to crack down on student visas, suspending new appointments for the interviews required as part of the application process and saying it would scrutinize students’ social media accounts.
Reassuring her parents that she is fine has become a part of the daily routine for at least one Chinese student in Baltimore. The woman, who asked that her name not be used to avoid problems with her visa, said the past several months have been emotionally exhausting — and crushing to what she and others from her country have long dreamed about.
“Many Chinese students want to study in America,” said the woman, who is working on a Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University. “My parents would say, if you could have the chance, you should go.”
There is more freedom here than in China to follow your interests, she said, rather than have the government influence your course of study.
“I think international students, what’s attractive to us in America is the liberty and the democracy,” she said. “I think that’s what’s special for America.”
Now, that may be damaged by the Trump administration’s actions, she said. She had been planning to go to Europe this summer but instead will remain in the U.S. to avoid what happened to an acquaintance: A Hopkins engineering student who returned to China for the lunar new year in January was denied re-entry to the U.S.
“I don’t think he’s a spy,” the woman said. “He was just here to study.”
Hopkins has among some of the highest percentages of international students among its peer universities. According to the university, 15% of undergraduates, 29% of graduate students and 34% of Ph.D. students are international. Some schools within the university have particularly high shares of students from abroad, such as the Peabody Institute, where more than half of the graduate students are international.
The turmoil over visas is yet another issue confronting Hopkins, which is among the universities that the Trump administration has investigated for alleged antisemitism, and it has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, including from the dismantling of the foreign aid agency USAID.
Professors said the seemingly unending attacks on academia are disheartening, even if they are not personally at risk, because their colleagues, students and institutions are.
François Furstenberg, a history professor at Hopkins, has called for Hopkins to come out more forcefully against what he sees as the “existential threats” Trump poses not just to the university’s mission but also to the law and the Constitution.
“There’s no compromise with authoritarianism,” Furstenberg said. “The only path forward is to say, this is illegal and we’re going to fight you in court.
“It would help morale if people can say the university is on our side,” he said. “What’s been distressing is the general silence.”
Hopkins has largely avoided public confrontations with Trump, although it recently sought to support a Harvard lawsuit over federal funding cuts.
A JHU spokesperson said in a statement that the university’s Office of International Services is providing “a wide range of support” to students and staff.
“International students, faculty, postdocs and staff are vital members of the Hopkins community, and we remain committed to supporting their success and well-being amid the ongoing changes to federal immigration policy,” the spokesperson said.
As other universities have done, Hopkins has warned international students and faculty of the risk of travel abroad these days. “If you cannot afford an interruption in your studies, research, employment or teaching due to an indefinite period abroad, you should carefully consider the need to travel outside the U.S.,” according to guidance on the JHU Office of International Services site. “OIS can never guarantee re-entry to the U.S. as the decision is up to Customs and Border Protection.”
In a message earlier this month to the Hopkins community, JHU President Ron Daniels and other officials noted the toll of a “difficult several months” and expressed deep concern for an international community that “has always been critical to our research mission.”
But another Hopkins professor, a citizen of a European country, said she feels very vulnerable at the moment.
“If anything happens, we’re on our own. The university is not going to pick a fight with the Trump administration over a professor,” she said, asking to remain anonymous to avoid problems with her application for a green card.
This spring, seeing ICE raids across the country has been “truly terrifying,” she said.
“This constant anxiety, it drains you,” she said. “There’s a sense that anything could happen at any moment. Trump could have a bad night, and all of a sudden, another visa could be ended.”
The professor has lived and worked in the U.S. for much of her adult life. “It’s not like we’re just visiting. This is home for us. We make friends here. We work our jobs. We care about our research,” she said. “All of a sudden, that seems like it could all fall apart.”
Rachel Banks, senior director for public policy and legislative strategy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said even before the Trump administration’s recent actions, “international students and scholars are already the most scrutinized visa holders.”
Banks, whose nonprofit group advocates for global education, said she worried that students would be unable to obtain visas to study here, or would decide it wasn’t worth the risk and uncertainty. Cutting off this pipeline of talent has long-term implications for universities and research, she said.
“Students will go elsewhere for their education, and that will be a big loss for us,” she said. “We need the students, and we also need the scholars to be teaching the next generation.”
The Baltimore professor who was sent back to Africa left behind about a half-dozen academic papers in progress, a few were under peer review, and others were largely finished but awaiting copy editing. He’s not sure he can complete them from where he currently is, far from his rented home near campus, where all his software and other belongings remain.
He follows the news from his adopted home — he was thrilled that Ravens wide receiver Jay Flowers is back from his injury last season — and wonders how his students are doing.
“I loved it. You see these kids change and grow,” he said. “You think, maybe I did something right here.”
He’s been trying to get an interview to obtain a visa to return but has been told the embassies aren’t scheduling any.
“The best thing you can do,” he said an embassy source told him, “is wait it out.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>Meanwhile, in Baltimore, protesters have voiced the same outrage over the stepped-up raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the demonstrations have been peaceful and the atmosphere collaborative.
That’s intentional, according to both demonstration organizers and police in Baltimore, a city that is no stranger to unrest that turns destructive.
“We knew we could have done better after Freddie Gray,” Police Commissioner Richard Worley said. “I think that’s that goes for us and the communities. We don’t want to repeat that.”
In 2015, the death of Gray in police custody triggered a series of demonstrations that grew and intensified, culminating in unrest on the day of his funeral in which buildings and cars were torched, shopkeepers beaten, and stores and pharmacies looted.
In recent years, in Baltimore and elsewhere, there have been efforts and scholarship on how cities can best handle demonstrations and how organizers can most successfully promote their cause.
Among “the most consistent findings,” for example, is how non-violent tactics are more effective than violent ones, said Lisa Mueller, an associate professor of political science at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of the book, “The New Science of Social Change: A Modern Handbook for Activists.”
But, she noted, it depends on who is viewed as responsible for any violence that breaks out.
In Los Angeles, for example, Trump has said he sent in the military to quell the “anarchy” and the city would be “on fire” without them. State and local officials, though, said deploying troops to the city escalated tensions and violence.
“If protesters fire the first shot, or more likely throw the first rock, this tends to sour the public on them and set them back,” Mueller said.
But the use of force against protesters can backfire, she said. “There’s evidence that repression can help the protesters’ cause because it raises sympathy for them.
During these fractious times, officials are contending not just with anti-ICE sentiments but a range of protests against Trump and his administration’s actions, from the “Tesla Takedowns” when Elon Musk was advising Trump and enacting sweeping budget and staff cuts, to national efforts like Saturday’s “No Kings” demonstrations.
Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement Friday that state agencies have been monitoring the upcoming rallies and coordinating with community leaders and law enforcement to maintain public safety.
“Over the weekend, thousands of Marylanders will gather to exercise their guaranteed and hard-fought-for First Amendment freedoms,” Moore said. “We are a state that will protect the rights of the people, and also uphold the law.”
In Baltimore, the immigrant rights organization CASA worked with police, elected officials and community groups in planning protests against recent ICE raids here, said Crisaly De Los Santos, the group’s Baltimore and Central Maryland director.
“We wanted to reflect strength, unity and the refusal to be silenced,” De Los Santos said. “We coordinated with the community. We had elected officials marching with us. That was powerful.”
When they can, Worley said, police have sought to meet in advance with organizers of protests on logistics, such as whether officers will need to temporarily block streets for marchers, and to make sure that things don’t get out of hand.
“We basically explain, you can peacefully protest… but you can’t destroy property and you can’t commit assault,” Worley said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t yell and scream because that’s your right, but we want everybody to have their protest, have their say and then everybody gets to go home safely.”
Worley, then chief of patrol, was charged with developing the department’s deployment plans for the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on his neck. Worley noted the department was singled out for praise in a New York Times article about the after-action reports various cities conducted on how they handled the protests.
“Only the police department in Baltimore was credited with handling protests relatively well,” the article said. “The department deployed officers in ordinary uniforms and encouraged them ‘to calmly engage in discussion’ with protesters, the report said.”
Baltimore’s report was done by the independent team that monitors the city’s compliance with a federal consent decree mandating a sweeping overhaul of its policing. Among the mandates in the decree that the department has successfully completed is how it handles First Amendment-protected activities such as protests.
The monitoring team’s report on the George Floyd protests in Baltimore lauded both the police and the community for the largely peaceful demonstrations. “First, protest leaders were well-organized, committed to non-violence, and willing to share information” with police, the report said. “Second, BPD commanders lowered the temperature and avoided provocation by permitting the protests to proceed unimpeded; refraining from unnecessary arrests for minor infractions.”
Worley noted that when someone in the crowd of one protest threw something at police, other demonstrators chased down the alleged culprit and delivered him to the police.
Mueller said it’s hard to know if the current protests against ICE will spread or become more violent. For now, Los Angeles, with its proximity to the southern border and the high percentage of immigrants, remains the epicenter, with “the usual suspect cities, the blue cities” more recently having protests of their own.
The movement would grow more powerful should the protests expand beyond into more unexpected locales, she said.
“If protests were to start erupting in rural Iowa,” she said, “it would suggest the coalition against Trump is broader than it seemed.”
Among those who are watching how the protests develop is the actor and Buddhist priest Peter Coyote. In a Substack that has been making the social media rounds, he urged anti-ICE demonstrators to avoid damaging their own cause. Coyote, who noted that he once taught a class on the “theater of protest, advised demonstrators to exercise discipline, go home at night when it’s hard to tell who’s who, and not to be baited into destructive, violent acts that can be used in “Republican campaign videos.”
“A protest is an invitation to a better world,” Coyote said. “It’s a ceremony.”
In Baltimore, Worley said he hopes any further anti-ICE protests will remain as calm as they’ve been so far and avoid problems that may attract federal attention and a deployment of the National Guard. He’d rather keep the response local.
“The police department has become very good with protests,” Worley said, “We have handled a lot of them.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
]]>The announcement, though, did little to quell the anxiety and uncertainty brought on by months of the administration targeting international students at the nation’s university campuses.
“We’ll believe it when we see it,” said Rachel Banks, senior director for public policy and legislative strategy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, an 11,000-member group that advocates for global education.
For now, she said, the situation remains fluid after a series of “ping-ponging” directives from the White House. It remains unclear how Trump’s statement, made in a social media post, would translate to the process of applying for or renewing student visas.
During recent months, international students have had their visas revoked, although in some cases they’ve been restored, and the U.S. has suspended the interviews necessary to apply or renew them. Some have had difficulty re-entering the U.S. after trips abroad, leading some universities to advise students not to travel.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social account that the trade and tariff deal would allow the U.S. to obtain magnets and rare earth materials from China, and in exchange, “we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!).
Students and their college programs have been struggling with how to address the ever-fluctuating directives.
“People who are on student visas, there’s a real climate of uncertainty,” said Margaret Pearson, a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, who works in the field of Chinese policy. “It’s very confusing in general. There are so many moving parts. It’s all so not transparent and constantly changing.”
The Chinese students in her PhD program are “very nervous,” and several declined a request forwarded to them to speak to The Baltimore Sun, she said. One recently admitted student for the coming academic year, who is from Shanghai, will need to get a visa. But Pearson said she does not know if he had been able to schedule the necessary interview at the consulate office there.
Last month, the Trump administration stopped scheduling student interviews at U.S. embassies and consular sections abroad. According to news reports, the administration ordered the pause as it considered expanding the vetting of applicants’ social media activity.
The Chinese students in her program generally return home every three or four years because the expense prevents more frequent visits, Pearson said. Now, they’re afraid to travel at all for fear of being questioned or denied entry upon their return, she said.
“‘Do I go home and renew my visa?'” she said her students have been thinking. “‘Do I dare to leave the country?’ There’s no reliable guidance I can give.”
The uncertainty over Chinese students comes after months of the Trump administration targeting different groups of visa holders.
In April, an estimated 1,500 student visas were revoked nationwide, including at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland campuses. Later in the month, however, some were restored after a court order led to a reversal of the termination.
The focus then turned to Chinese students specifically, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying on March 28 that his department would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students.”
And then earlier this month, the Trump administration issued a travel ban against citizens of 12 countries and partial limits against seven other countries. Saying the move “may add further stress to our international community,” UMCP officials offered services and counseling to students and staff who might be affected.
According to NAFSA, students from abroad are about 6% of the U.S. higher education population, although schools like Johns Hopkins University, have a much higher proportion. A recent article in The New York Times found Hopkins had the seventh highest percentage, 39%, of international students among selective four-year schools with at least 1,000 students.
Banks of NAFSA said beyond the immense academic and cultural contributions international students and scholars bring to the U.S., they also add an estimated $43.8 billion to the economy.
“It remains to be seen” how chilling an effect the Trump administration’s actions on student visas will have on that, she said. “It certainly is a disconcerting time to be in this moment now.”
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