Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-tr...

> A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities across the U.S.

This is going to burn the children of the most powerful families across the world. Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard. Destroying their children’s education out of a fit of malice is going to haunt him, and America on top of all the other stuff America is doing to the world.

America first is rapidly becoming America alone.

I mean seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?

Hopefully, though, this is an "escalate to deescalate" thing, and this whole discussion will become moot.

It will quietly be done, although likely in a way that make it look as if Harvard hasn't.

Harvard may argue that DHS’s request was overly broad, lacked due process, or sought information beyond what the law permits.

8 CFR § 214.3(g) and § 214.4(b), which require schools to maintain and furnish records “as required by the Service,” including disciplinary actions and other conduct relevant to maintaining status.

8 CFR § 214.3(l)(2)(iii) allows for withdrawal of certification if a school fails to “provide requested documentation” to DHS.

Not to mention other overly broad immigration laws

But given the laws on the books, DHS has broad authority to take this action.

Not arguing one way or the other just laying out the facts. This could have happened under the prior administration if the law was applied

If Harvard has maintained approval for international students, and Harvard's policies with respect to the approval haven't changed recently, then withdrawing approval would be arbitrary.

A regular corporation with the same fact pattern of discrimination would be looking at a billion+ dollar fine.

this is just Harvard losing some special privilges and being expected to act reasonably fairly like any other publicly funded institution.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-163976813

They're not actually so scientifically productive that we should tolerate discrimination in order to get the fruits of their research.

Here's the beginning:

WASHINGTON – Today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered DHS to terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.

This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.

Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students. Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide.

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Secretary Noem. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

On April 16, 2025, Secretary Noem demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus. Secretary Noem warned refusal to comply with this lawful order would result in SEVP termination.

This action comes after DHS terminated $2.7 million in DHS grants for Harvard last month.

Harvard University brazenly refused to provide the required information requested and ignored a follow up request from the Department’s Office of General Council. Secretary Noem is following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the U.S. government.

I think a fair answer might be that this immediate action is primarily about Israel, and Harvard's toleration and apparent support of organizations that the US government considers to be terrorists. Harvard has quite consciously taken an antagonistic approach here, and the government feels it is responding in kind.

Secondarily, it's about the way that elite schools have aligned themselves with the progressive politics associated with the Democratic party. Harvard is the target here because they are strongest, not necessarily because they are the most liberal. If the government can humble Harvard, they expect that all the weaker institutions will fold without a fight.

Harvard and Yale didn't hire the right lobbyists [0][1][2]

The other universities like Dartmouth, MIT, and public university systems did.

One of the side effect of being large endowment private universities meant Harvard and Yale remained extremely insular and concentrated on donor relations over government relations.

For example, MIT across town remained much more integrated with public-private projects compared to Harvard, and ime Harvard would try to leverage their alumni network where possible, but the Harvard alumni network just isn't as strong as it was 20 or 30 years ago.

Also, don't underestimate the Israel-Palestine culture war's impact on campus alumni relationships. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli campus orgs have continued to bombard me and other alumni to fight political battles against Harvard leadership for their side. Benefits of signing up to both Islamic orgs and Chabad to broaden my horizons back in the day I guess. Alumni from orgs on both sides are fine targeting the entire university, because fundamentally, Harvard is a very isolated experience where loyalty is to your house, a couple clubs, or your grad program - not Harvard as a whole.

And because Harvard has a lot of HNW alumni, they always try to meddle in some shape or form - Wen Jiabao's best friend funds the Fairbank Center, Kraft funds and hosts events at Chabad, some al Saud branches fund a couple Islamic clubs, a bunch of alt-right leaning Catholic traditionalists fund the Abigail Adams Institute, etc. It's just inter-elite fratricide at this point because no one truly gives a poo about Harvard.

Honestly, Harvard should prevent alumni from funding campus orgs, but they won't do so because donor relations.

[0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...

[1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/small-colleges-trum...

[2] - https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024...

Edit: I am extremely pro-academic freedom. This move is a HORRIBLE affront to free speech and campus autonomy. My cynicism and disillusionment may sound like I support the move by the administration, but it is the complete opposite.

The simple answer is that they don't. Alumni are often in powerful positions, but even they are, that is very different from the school itself exerting influence.

* Trump does not care or maybe lacks the understanding of the concept of a network and influence with entities outside the U.s.

* Trump probably figures that he can use this as sort of leverage against negotiations with non-U.s. entities...but using a blunt instrument instead of nuance, or backchannels.

* Trump is foolishly following the guidelines from the architects of project 2025...whether those folks are educated enough to understand value of schools of higher educatioin, or worse, these architects fear having an educated population - regardless if that population are U.S. citizens or folks outside of U.S.

* Trump is behaving like a child having a tantrum, and is demolishing the "swamp" of current political arenas, and re-building it for himself/his party...and Harvard and other entities (that typically might be invited) are not invited in the upcoming new world order.

* Trump has little desire in any/all of this, and this is simply another stab at pushing the envelope of what the U.s. Executive branch can/can not do...much like a child who pushes boundaries to see how far they can get...and if no one pushes back/challenges (at least in meaningful ways), then they will keep pushing until greater power has been obtained.

...of course, it could be a combination of many of the above at the same time as well...and could be other stuff that i didn't note above too. In other words, welcome to the modern U.S. tyranny. ;-)

Turns out the "deep state" is just some made up bullshit to make people distrustful, angry, and easier to manipulate.

> Is some other faction at work now, or is it the same people as before? Are the power networks changing?

Nope, it's always been this dynamic. It's made of people after all. But that doesn't work as well to get people lapping up Trumpty Dumpty propaganda.

Most presidents let the agencies run mostly unsupervised, it seems like. With the agencies now under heavy fire structurally, they may not be able to do what they would normally do to prevent this kind of thing.

I think the whole agency model gives the president way more power than they are meant to have. I guess this exists to serve as a form of blame laundering from the people without term limits to the guy with term limits? But if the president does not play ball, suddenly they have power over things congress would otherwise have power over. Oops.

Side question I've been wrestling with to whoever feels like commenting: At what point would you look at our current US situation and say "yep, we're now in a dictatorship"

Major players, regarding the Gaza/Hamas issue:

- Harvard itself. The administration, not the faculty or students.

- The US Eastern Establishment, the Ivy League and its graduates. They once ran the US, and still run finance, but are less influential politically than a few decades ago.

- The Netanyahu faction in Israel. Understanding this requires more info about Israeli politics than is worth posting here. Wikipedia has a summary.[1] There are a huge number of factions. Netanyahu leads a coalition. The coalition seems to need an enemy to hold it together.

- MAGA. "Project 2025" is the MAGA playbook. Despite some denials, the Trump administration has mostly been following that playbook.

- Israel's lobby in the US, starting with AIPAC. American Jews as a group average left of center, but the Israel lobby is hard-right.

- Major donors to Harvard. Some are closely associated with the Israel lobby and vocal about it. Others aren't.

- The US courts. Anyone can bring a case to court, and courts have to do something about it.

- Trump.

Minor players:

- Fox News. 23 of Trump's appointees came from Fox News. The MAGA base listens to Fox News.

- The United Nations. Provides some aid, but hasn't been able to do more than that.

- US Congress. Has the real power, but is too divided to do anything with it.

- Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. They're the ones most affected, but lack any real power at this point. It's not even suggested that they be represented in international meetings.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Israel

In the case of Harvard, I think the current observations are most consistent with the following: the Board of Trustees, faculty, and students have currently aligned in their goals - which we might summarize as (1) maintaining independence from the government and (2) the ability to hold/teach specific "controversial" viewpoints (benefits of diversity, anti-colonialism, potentially other "progressive" concepts). I suspect that within the factions the relative importance of these two goals is not balanced. The fact that the coalition has survived much longer than, e.g., Columbia, is somewhat surprising.

My suspicion is that the answer to your question is that the persistent "smacking around" is only in part due to the external factors other replies have mentioned. I think a major piece of the situation can be explained by a change in the power dynamic with the alumni. Under normal circumstances, the faculty presumably hope to maintain long lasting influence over their alumni, which the board of trustees leverage to bring in more money and influence to the university. The current situation suggests that the high-power/high-$$$ portion of the alumni who are in a position to leverage the public conversation about what's going on are not doing it. This implies that the strength of that edge of the power graph is much weaker than it was expected to be. I think it remains to be seen whether this is true. Further observations that would support that would be reduced donations, public complaints, etc. Conversely, increased fundraising and more public support would suggest the opposite.

The key point about the university power network is that USUALLY, the best situation is to avoid situations that actually reveal too much information. Everyone would prefer to believe they have more power than they do. Obviously the alumni are composed of factions, and presumably a large fraction of the potential participants are also members of other organizations with latent power networks and participating in this particular situation would involve expending capital in these other networks with potential reduction in power. Some alumni that have spoken up (i.e., Ackman) are clearly unaligned with the current coalition, and this MAY reflect the fact that the wealthy/powerful group of alumni that have sustained Harvard are really unhappy with the current stances of the university and would like it to shift (return?) to a different set of ideologies. But it's also possible that he represents a minority, and the rest are just nervous about getting involved.

My conclusion from this analysis is that things will persist as they have, with everyone who might be involved hoping that lawsuits will be successful in resolving the situation with the minimum of their involvement. If this approach is unsuccessful, I think we'll end up in a situation where we get a much better observation of the power balance between alumni, faculty, and board (I think the students rarely have as much power as they think they do!).

What you describe is relatively recent development of US foreign policy. In 1959, John F. Kennedy purchased a copy of The Ugly American for all of his fellow US Senators. After Kennedy was elected, many foreign service programs were initiated to leverage soft power. That was JFK's legacy.

Prior to that, the US acted much in the same way as it is today. It came up with Bretton Woods, along with the UK. The people that ran the world were the Averill Harrimans and Prescott Bushes.

In 1956, the US basically told the UK it wasn't going to back the Prime Minister (Anthony Eden) with regards to the Suez Canal. That was probably a sobering indication that the UK was going to be a supplicant in the relationship. The US also returned Vietnam to France (as was policy after WW2), which of course precipitated 20 years of war in southeast asia.

The end of the WW2, and the discovery of the infiltration of Russian agents in the dead Roosevelt administration put Truman in panic mode. The iron curtain and cold war basically turned foreign policy into a huge power grab after the war to position against a perceived threat.

https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/ugly-american-jf...

Shameless, wrong, and overtly illegal discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and creed, suppression of free speech, even the compelling of speech have all been de rigeur for Harvard for the past decade.

I just wish they would use a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer.

I think there are almost certainly factions here. I personally think Trump is targeting Harvard because of the above reason. Overall I think the situation is quite bad but that isn't what you asked.

Even though he went to a prestigious school himself he's not the kind to make an academic pursuit resembling anything like truly sensible Presidents. The complete opposite of the league of actual accomplished Harvard men like Bush and Obama. What a weenie, Trump is probably just jealous and hates himself and everyone else because he'll never measure up to people having average-to-above-average intellect & integrity. Completely on brand to whine like a child with the most amplified voice he's ever had. So that's what he's going to do instead of something worthwhile for the citizens.

1. Maybe most importantly, attacking academic institutions is part of the fascist coup playbook. [1] That could really be enough motivation on its own - these steps have lead to the desired outcome before, if you follow them closely enough they will probably work again. Just like the seemingly out-of-the-left-field framing of DEI, of all things, as the big Enemy that is corrupting art, science and the American people itself. It seems crazy, but notice how well it's working.

2. It's another vase to throw in the air, forcing you to catch it, cartoon-style. People who care and believe in process will spend time and energy going through the court system to limit the damage done, but the defenders will lag behind, their focus divided, while the attackers can just keep breaking bigger and bigger things, since they not care much what damage they do to people or their country.

3. It lets them target pro-Palestine protesters gradually starting from the most extreme. The genocide in Gaza can go a lot further. It is mutually beneficial for Trump, Netanyahu and Putin to divide both domestic and international outrage between them (see point 2.) By the time the full scale of the atrocities are clear, arresting and prosecuting protesters for "antisemitism" will be routine. And if you're not willing to stand up and protest, and therefore be removed, chances are you won't stick your neck out when they instate "temporary" changes to federal elections - only out of some extreme necessity, of course.

[1] https://perspectives.ushmm.org/collection/higher-education-i...

Yes and this can't be overstated. Interests that were previously aligned are now going to fracture. Everything is up for grabs now.

The prestige networks people perceive as existing are actually just plot devices for Hollywood.

Obvious answer is obvious.

That's "institutional talk", which is not relevant when you have a "mad king".

He's already done this to the Associated Press for ignoring his stupid Gulf of Mexico rename as well as to several law firms for representing democrats.

It didn't. Conservatives in this country have explicitly been headed this direction since they decided to never let another Nixon happen. Not that they would prevent another criminal Republican. But they would ensure that Republicans are never punished for behavior like this. It led to Fox News and Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson, etc. The writing has been on the wall in plain sight for everyone to see for literally decades. The people who have been pointing it out and stating this is exactly where the country has been headed are called radicals and casually dismissed. The only reason Romney lost is because he didn't lean into the hatred his base was demanding[1]. Trump delivered what they wanted.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/romney-...

If you want an indication why the US could go into dictatorship mode, look no further than to what is happening now. Dictatorship coups are extremely fragile in the initial phase. The very recent example is South Korea. It only takes a few determined people to sabotage the coup. In the same fashion, Trump would immediately stop if enough people were to take it to the street. So far, the silence is extremely loud.

Most likely Harvard will try to fight it in court and then give in if they lose. It's not likely we see the future decertification continue into the academic year.

They might prefer to start with certain targets, but all international students are target of opportunity [0] the same way they've attacked people with lawful residency.

[1] Though perhaps with some very particular and suspicious quasi-ethnic exceptions. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crljn5046epo

[0] Ex. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/immigration-green-card..., https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article304988381.html

They will be accommodated.

Foreign students normally enter via a non-immigrant visa (F1), or rather they are eligible to apply for that visa at an embassy, if a registered sponsor supports it. The visa permits a request for entry into the country for the purpose of study (at a port of entry). The most important document that you need day to day is a DS-2019 and you must remain "in F1 status" in the SEVIS system for the duration of your program. If you don't leave the US, you don't need another visa even if your original one expires, the university can issue you a new DS-2019 annually until your end-of-program date. That's up to 5 years dependent on the category. If you leave after your visa expires you have to renew it out of the country, which is normally straightforward (using the dropbox system).

The government has not prevented foreign people from studying or working at Harvard, they have withdrawn their ability to maintain status while at Harvard. Hence why they can transfer to another institution.

They’re trying to hit some targets for deportation numbers and shipping home “criminal” foreign students is an easy win.

It seems that what is portrayed as a dispute over Palestine, antisemitism and qamas is actually a cover for a power-struggle between the liberals and conservatives ( such as the Heritage foundation, Project 2025, and Yarvinites)

[1] - https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...

[2] - https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...

edit : But when i think of it more, maybe it is about Israel and Zionism but over a longer time-scale than recent events. If you look at some of the early anti-'woke' and anti-left movements like the self-proclaimed 'Intellectual dark web', lot of them are zionists who viewed the growing liberal disenchantment with zionism in the college campus and left-wing activism (including pro-palestine activism like the BDS movement) as an existential threat to Israel.

I mean ... it's still nuts, but slightly different.

Instead of breaking the "keys" (visas) that unlock the doors to Harvard, they're just putting glue in the locks.

But, I suspect, if suddenly all international students transferred to MIT, the administration would simply do the same to MIT. So it would become one big game of whack-a-mole, and the smaller players would just bend over to the rules.

International students are cash cows for some institutions. They wouldn't dare to have that cow put down.

It already is this. Their attack on the judicial branch is the most frightening IMO, since it is directly attacking checks and balances.

1. Racism

2. Racism

3. Racism

Judge blocks Trump administration from revoking Harvard enrollment of foreign students

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-sues-trump-administ...

The TRO:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.285...

Previous admins didn't withhold billions in funding that was already granted, threaten 25% of its student body with expulsion, and try to take away its tax status.

Source?

(/s in case it wasn't obvious)

I want to note that when Brexit happened EU citizens had about 2 years period to move to UK and just like that get their full rights there and those with enough years of stay had the right to obtain British citizenship. Streamlined process through scanning your id using an app, little to no hassle.

IIRC half of the EU citizens left despite having all those rights and streamlined bureaucracy. My observation was that those desperate or those who ware having their perfect life stayed, those who had other options left UK because it wasn't worth the stress and you future being bargaining chips for politicians.

I bet you, if this continues for some more time USA will no longer receive the best and the brightest. Those have options and their parents will prefer the options where their golden kids don't risk being subject to life changing actions or even abuse.

Makes me think of:

"Reality has a well known liberal bias" - Stephen Colbert

The amount of "burn it all down because I don't like the people that like this thing" is depressing.

I don't think Trump is really running the show here.

Vance literally defended the eating cats and dogs lie during the debate. The entire fucking point of this platform is to fuck the immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Or is this actually a surprise to anyone with half a brain?

That being said, republicans decided to chose an M1 Abrams tank to kill the pesky mice in the system.

Party doesn't matter. Ds need to inform their R Congresscritters every bit as much as any other combination.

For what it's worth, Republican constituents overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the R primary. Any number of candidates would have provided boilerplate Republican policies, but that wasn't what they wanted.

What Trump is doing is what these voters want.

And there's no limit. It's become an illiberal pro-authoritarian movement. It's in-progress.

Pick something you care about and defend it. It can't be everything all at once at all times, no one can do that.

As someone with some "right-leaning" views I am indeed very sad that the US is losing our edge as an international destination for higher education but I do want to see major reforms at elite institutions. I don't see a good way to accomplish these reforms without being willing to go after institutions in the only way they really care about (hurting the budget). I think we would reach a better place if we could agree to compromises where the universities concede on the "less important points" (e.g. make an earnest effort to drop everything the right calls DEI and reduce the administration to student ratio back to ~1980 levels) while the right agrees to leave funding and privileges in place but if we cannot compromise then we unfortunately end up in a position that is worse for everyone. I suspect most of the left will blame the right for being unable to compromise while most of the right will blame the right but this is kind of the same theme for every major party-aligned disagreement.

Republicans and Trump-voting independents signed up for this. They want to see Harvard treated the same way it treats others.

J.D. Vance gave a big speech at the Nationalism Conservatism Conference titled "The Universities are the Enemy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw

Destroying universities has been his schtick since long before he was a VP candidate.

He has stated that he believes 4-year degrees make people dumber.

I'm constantly amazed by how many people don't know that waging wars on Universities has been Vance's thing for years.