A Harvard sign is seen at the Harvard University campus in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 27, 2025.
U.S. In response to an escalating conflict with Harvard University, President Donald Trump on Wednesday quickly halted the entry of overseas nationals in search of to study at the Ivy League institution or take part in trade programs into the United States. Trump’s proclamation stated countrywide safety concerns as a justification for barring international college students from coming into the United States to pursue studies at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university.
Harvard mentioned Trump’s proclamation as “yet another unlawful retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights” in a statement. “Harvard will continue to shield its international college students,” it brought.
After six months, the suspension may be extended. Trump’s proclamation additionally directs the U.S. State Department to take into account revoking educational or trade visas of any current Harvard students who meet his proclamation’s criteria.
The directive on Wednesday got here a week after a federal decide in Boston announced she would problem a broad injunction blocking the administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, who make up approximately 1 / 4 of its student body.
The administration has launched a multifront attack at the kingdom’s oldest and wealthiest university, freezing billions of dollars in presents and different funding and offering to end its tax-exempt status, prompting a sequence of criminal demands.
Harvard argues that the management is retaliating against it for refusing to accede to its demands to govern the faculty’s governance, curriculum, and the ideology of its college and college students.
Harvard sued after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, on May 22, announced that her department would without delay revoking Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which permits it to enroll overseas college students.
The United States almost at once quickly halted her action. District Judge Allison Burroughs. On the eve of a hearing earlier than her remaining week, the department changed direction and stated it’d as an alternative task Harvard’s certification thru a lengthier administrative procedure.
Nonetheless, Burroughs said she planned to issue a longer-term initial injunction at Harvard’s urging, saying one was vital to give a few protection to Harvard’s global students.
The State Department advised all of its consular missions distant places to start extra vetting of visa applicants looking for to travel to Harvard for any cause in an internal cable that became seen through Reuters a day after the courtroom listening to. Wednesday’s two-page directive said Harvard had “established a history of regarding overseas ties and radicalism,” and had “full-size entanglements with foreign adversaries,” including China.
According to the proclamation, the FBI had “long warned that overseas adversaries take gain of smooth get right of entry to to American better schooling to steal statistics, exploit studies and development, and spread false records.” It said Harvard had visible a “drastic upward thrust in crime in current years whilst failing to discipline as a minimum some categories of behavior violations on campus,” and had did not offer enough records to the Homeland Security Department about overseas students’ “recognized illegal or dangerous activities.”