Trump Bars Foreign Students From Entering US to Attend Harvard

President Donald Trump signed an executive action that prevents foreign nationals from entering the US to study at Harvard University, accusing the school of failing to implement discipline on campus and fostering a dramatic rise in crime.

The Trump action may allow the administration to sidestep a ruling by US District Judge Allison Burroughs that allowed the university to temporarily continue enrolling students. That earned a rebuke from the White House, which suggested the judge had overreached.

Trump said the university had responded to a federal government request on violent, illegal or threatening campus behavior by only identifying three foreign students enrolled at the university.

“Harvard’s actions show that it either is not fully reporting its disciplinary records for foreign students or is not seriously policing its foreign students,” Trump said.

The president also accused the university of having “developed extensive entanglements with foreign countries” and criticized its researchers for partnering with Chinese colleagues in ways that could advance Beijing’s military modernization effort.

“Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,” Trump said. “Until such time as the university shares the information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public, it is in the national interest to deny foreign nationals access to Harvard under the auspices of educational exchange.”

Read More: Trump Officials Target Columbia Accreditation Over Protests

Trump has sought to reshape Harvard’s policies on a wide-range of issues, including admissions and faculty hiring practices, citing the pro-Palestinian protests and incidents of antisemitism that rocked college campuses after the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Harvard, though, has fought Trump’s demands. The federal government, in return, has escalated by moving to cut funding and bar international students.

Trump’s proclamation would bar foreign nationals coming to the US whose primary purpose for entry was to study at Harvard, or for an exchange visitor program hosted by the university. The decision blocks entrance to the US through the Student Exchange Visa Program, and orders the State Department to consider revoking the legal status of Harvard students already in the US on education visas. The suspension is set to run for six months, though could be extended.

“This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights,” university spokesman Jason Newton said in an emailed statement. “Harvard will continue to protect its international students.”

The move comes even as a federal court blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s initial efforts to revoke Harvard’s authorization with the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

“If these judges want to be secretary of State or the president, they can run for office themselves,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Larry Summers, the former US Treasury secretary who led Harvard from 2001-2006, said Trump’s latest action “represents punitive extortion rather than any seriously thought through policy to promote national security.”

“Yes, Harvard should make a variety of changes, but extortion is the wrong way to bring them about and will ultimately prove to be counterproductive in terms of our national security as we alienate allies, threaten our scientific cutting edge and undermine the major contribution universities make to the national economy,” Summers wrote in a post on X.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed in a post on X that the “Department of Justice will vigorously defend the president’s proclamation suspending the entry of new foreign students at Harvard University based on national security concerns.”

There are around 6,800 international students enrolled at Harvard, representing around 27% of the student body.

The US has already frozen more than $2.6 billion in federal research funding at Harvard and said the school is not eligible for future federal funding.

Earlier Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it was asking an agency to revoke the accreditation of Columbia University, in another effort to target high-profile schools.

(Updates with details of legal case and scope of ban, starting in second paragraph; Harvard reaction, in ninth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Janet Lorin, Derek Wallbank and Natalie Choy.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Mario Parker at mparker22@bloomberg.net

Derek Wallbank, John Harney

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