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US President Donald Trump’s administration has rescinded Harvard University’s ability to admit international students as part of its intensifying conflict with the Ivy League institution.
The Trump administration says that thousands of current students are required to either transfer to different universities or leave the country.
“This means Harvard can no longer enrol foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” stated the US Department of Homeland Security in a statement.
The agency made the announcement on Thursday, stating that Harvard has fostered an unsafe campus atmosphere by permitting “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to attack Jewish students on its grounds.
Furthermore, it alleged that Harvard has collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party, claiming that it hosted and provided training to members of a Chinese paramilitary organisation as recently as 2024.
Harvard University has nearly 6,800 international students enrolled at its campus located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which represents over a quarter of its total student population.
The majority of these students are pursuing graduate studies and hail from more than 100 different countries.
Harvard called the action unlawful and said it’s working to provide guidance to students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
The conflict between the Trump administration and Harvard, the oldest and most affluent university in the United States, has escalated since Harvard became the first institution to openly resist the White House’s requests for changes at elite schools that have been labelled as brewing grounds of liberalism and antisemitism.
The federal government has reduced federal grants to Harvard by $2.6 billion (€2.3 billion), forcing the university to self-finance a significant portion of its extensive research activities. Trump has expressed his desire to strip the university of its tax-exempt status.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem says the decision to bar Harvard from hosting international students for the upcoming academic year stems from the school’s inability to comply with a 16 April request demanding information on foreign students.
The request from the Homeland Security department demanded the Ivy League university to provide data related to students who were involved in protests or dangerous activity on campus to be considered for deportation.
Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces the desired records on them within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage of the students.
Students in Harvard College Democrats said the Trump administration is playing with students’ lives to push a radical agenda and to quiet dissent.
“Trump’s attack on international students is text book authoritarianism — Harvard must continue to hold the line,” the group said in a statement.
The administration drew condemnation from free speech groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which said Noem is demanding a “surveillance state.”
“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” the group said.
Additional sources • AP