I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country.

Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.

Credit: Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

By Jack W. Szostak

I was born in London. My family’s ancestors came from England and Poland. I was raised in Canada, and went to high school and college in Montreal. But for more than 50 years, I have been an American by choice. This country has given me endless opportunities since I first came to Cornell as a grad student and joined the Harvard faculty as a naïve but ambitious young scientist in the 1970s. In the decades since then, the intellectual freedom of academia has allowed me to explore many different aspects of biology and chemistry. My life has changed a lot since my student days, but I still love exploring nature with colleagues from around the world.

My scientific journey led me to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, shared with my fellow researchers Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider. My discoveries were recognized by the Award in Molecular Biology from the National Academy of Sciences, and many other prizes. After leaving Harvard, I had the opportunity to join the University of Chicago, where today I direct a laboratory of some 20 young scientists, and an interdisciplinary program called the Center for Origins of Life. This is a distinctly American success story. I’m telling you this because it speaks to the incredible upside that is possible when the United States lives up to its historic role of being a worldwide magnet for free thought and free inquiry.

This nation became a beacon of world-class research, development, and discovery because people from around the world—myself included—looked to America, saw what was possible here, and decided they wanted to be a part of it. It wasn’t only that America was a big, dynamic country with many world-class research institutions. It was that here, unlike so many other places, differences of opinion were encouraged, and the prevailing ethos was to let the best ideas win.

What was it politically that made America so successful in advancing science? The country I chose to emigrate to five decades ago was led by a government that—across administrations, regardless of the party in power—recognized the importance of investing in science and scientific expertise. Research dollars flowed to ambitious minds that wanted to solve the most difficult, complicated, and important problems facing modern science. I know, because I was one of them.

And so it is with a great sense of disappointment that I have to say: The America we inhabit today bears almost no resemblance to the country I chose all those years ago.

Since the Trump administration re-entered office, we have lived through a fundamental break from the academic status quo. Respect for expertise, support for free inquiry, a belief that ideas supported by evidence ought to win out—all of that has fallen by the wayside. In their place, we’re witnessing the politicization of science, indiscriminate and destructive cuts to all kinds of research, an approach to governance that is based on a because-I-said-so mentality, and the dismissal of all advice that goes against the administration’s desires—no matter what the evidence says.

That is no way to run a country, and the disastrous consequences are already affecting us, in ways that will only get worse in the future. I could write a long essay on all the ways that this administration’s actions are harming Americans, but here I’ll focus on just four that are particularly alarming and unsettling. I chose them not just because of the dire consequences they portend, but because each speaks to me personally as an immigrant who chose this country, who was rewarded with the best it had to offer, and who desperately wants to see the same opportunities continue to be given to others.

Deportations. Trump promised “mass deportation now” on the campaign trail, and has moved to execute this scheme in the most disruptive and inhumane way possible. All of us have seen the videos of immigrants being attacked by masked federal agents on the streets and whisked away into unmarked vans. Those of us in academia have also watched in anguish as fellow scientists and researchers have been harassed and ridden out of the country.

Some, like Kseniia Petrova, have faced deportation to autocratic regimes that threaten their freedom or even their lives. This is a blunt and foolhardy approach to a nonexistent problem—namely, the idea that immigrants pose an existential threat to America. It jeopardizes not just the wellbeing of its immediate victims, but also our country’s future prosperity. The same country that gave refuge to Albert Einstein now threatens to drive out Petrova and so many others, along with their groundbreaking work.

Research cuts. Practically every scientific breakthrough and miraculous discovery of our age has been underwritten by public funding from the federal government. Every year, the federal government provides billions of dollars in grant funding to researchers working on every conceivable problem, from energy and climate to basic biology and advances in medicine. Most of that work goes unnoticed by the public at large because it is technical, detailed, and specialized. Research by its very definition is experimental, and most experiments don’t work, and even work that is successful often remains obscure. (Take it from a lifelong scientist.)

But, every now and then, a breakthrough occurs. Building on years of unappreciated advances, it seems almost miraculous when something like the Covid mRNA vaccine, or new immune therapies for cancer, spring into existence. Prizes and medals are bestowed on the scientists responsible, and America and the world are better for it. But without the research infrastructure, the scientists, and the continuous funding that undergirds all of this, there are no miracles, no breakthroughs, no cures.

That’s why it’s so disturbing that, in its first year alone, the Trump administration cut upwards of $32 billion in research funding. This left researchers scrambling to find alternate funding, active experiments were left to wither, and people whose lives depend on ongoing clinical trials were abandoned. Even when, or if, a sane administration takes office, it will take a generation or more to recover, and in the meantime, every American will be worse off.

Public health. The damage this administration is causing is most apparent in the field of public health. Since taking over as HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has set about translating his decades of conspiracy theorizing and anti-scientific quackery into official US government policy. This is a man who made a habit of mutilating dead animals, called the COVID-19 virus an “ethnically targeted” bio-weapon, and—of course—finds reasons to oppose any vaccine he comes across. Does that sound like the kind of person we want as America’s top public health official?

RFK Jr. has purged the agency he oversees of qualified personnel and replaced them with unqualified loyalists. He has sown skepticism of vaccines and pushed down vaccination rates across the board. The results have been sadly predictable: the reemergence of measles and other diseases that we had all but eradicated. We will suffer more such calamities as this administration drags on. The hollowing out of our public health institutions like the CDC is just one example of the crimes being perpetrated on the American people by the Trump administration.

Environmental destruction. Even worse is the dismantling of the EPA and the repeal of the environmental protections that made America a healthier place to live. At the same time, federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which track our weather and climate, and made America a safer place to live, are being destroyed. And on top of the violence being directed against immigrants, we’re all now being dragged into an unwanted war against Iran.

All of these things frighten me, and they should frighten you as well. Unlike most of the people who are making these catastrophic decisions right now, I actively chose America. I looked to this country as a beacon all those years ago, and I made the affirmative decision to create a life for myself here, because I viewed this as a place that rewarded determination, hard work, and integrity. It still has a chance to be that place again. But we must all wake up to what is happening and work together to fix our country before it is too late.

Jack Szostak is a Canadian-American biologist and Professor at the University of Chicago. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009. Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.