WASHINGTON (AP) — The efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to prevent Harvard University from enrolling international students have struck at the core of the Ivy League school's identity and unsettled current and prospective students around the world.
Last month, the government told Harvard's thousands of current foreign students that they must transfer to other schools or they will lose their legal permission to be in the U.S. A federal court in Boston last week blocked the Department of Homeland Security from barring international students at Harvard.
On Wednesday, Trump signed a proclamation invoking a different legal authority to keep Harvard's international students from entering the United States.
Trump has targeted Harvard's international enrollment as his administration presses the nation's oldest and wealthiest university to adopt a series of policy and governance changes, which the university has rebuffed.
Harvard decried the latest order as retaliation and said it violates the school's First Amendment rights. “Harvard will continue to protect its international students,” the university said Wednesday in a statement.
Harvard enrolls about 7,000 international students, most of them in graduate programs. Those students have been scrambling to figure out their next steps.
How does Trump's latest move differ from the first effort to block Harvard's international enrollment?
In May, the Trump administration tried to ban foreign students at Harvard, citing the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to oversee which colleges are part of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program. The program allows colleges to issue documents that foreign students need to study in the United States. In a lawsuit, Harvard said the administration violated the government’s own regulations for withdrawing a school’s certification. A judge put the administration's ban on hold.
On Wednesday, Trump tried a different approach. In a proclamation, he invoked a law that gives the president the ability to block foreigners from entering the country if their presence would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
At the center of Trump’s pressure campaign against Harvard are his assertions that the school, which he has called a hotbed of liberalism, has tolerated anti-Jewish harassment — especially during pro-Palestinian protests. In the directive Wednesday, he said Harvard is not a suitable destination for foreign students. Harvard President Alan Garber has said the university has made changes to combat antisemitism and will not submit to the administration's demands for further changes at Harvard over fears of retaliation.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I've never seen a president take a specific action against a higher education institution like this,” said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations for the American Council on Education. “The legality of these actions is certainly in question as well.”
How is Harvard responding to Trump's latest ban?
In an amended legal challenge filed Thursday, Harvard called the president’s action an end-run around the previous court order.
The filing attacks Trump’s legal justification for the action — a federal law allowing him to block a “class of aliens” deemed detrimental to the nation’s interests. Targeting only those who are coming to the U.S. to study at Harvard doesn’t qualify as a “class of aliens,” Harvard said in its filing.
“The President’s actions thus are not undertaken to protect the ‘interests of the United States,’ but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard,” the university wrote.
The new filing asks the same federal judge in Boston to block Trump’s latest action, too.
What percentage of Harvard's student body is affected?
Harvard sponsors more than 7,000 people on a combination of F-1 and J-1 visas, which are issued to students and to foreigners visiting the U.S. on exchange programs such as fellowships. Across all the schools that make up the university, about 26% of the student body is from outside the U.S.
But some schools and programs, by nature of their subject matter, have significantly more international students. At the Harvard Kennedy School, which covers public policy and public administration, 49% of students are on F-1 visas. In the business school, one-third of students come from abroad. And within the law school, 94% of the students in the master’s program in comparative law are international students.
Will admitted students be able to enroll at Harvard in the fall?
While the initial effort to block international enrollment has been put on hold, the new order would keep new Harvard students from entering the country unless the government changes course.
For foreign students already at Harvard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will determine if visas should be revoked, Trump wrote.
Has the government ever done this before?
The government can and does remove colleges from the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, making them ineligible to host foreign students on their campus. However, it's usually for administrative reasons outlined in law, such as failing to maintain accreditation, lacking proper facilities for classes, failing to employ qualified professional personnel — even failing to “operate as a bona fide institution of learning.” Other colleges are removed when they close.
How else has the Trump administration targeted Harvard?
Harvard's battle with the Trump administration dates to early April. The storied institution became the first elite college to refuse to comply with the government's demands to limit pro-Palestinian protests and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies. That kicked off a series of escalating actions against Harvard. Various federal agencies, including DHS and the National Institutes of Health, have cut their grant funding to Harvard, significantly impacting research projects conducted by faculty. Harvard has sued the administration, seeking to end the grant freeze.
The administration first threatened to revoke Harvard's ability to host international students back in April. Trump also has said Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status. Doing so would strike at the school's ability to fundraise, as wealthy donors often give to tax-exempt institutions to lower their own tax burdens.
Does Harvard give scholarships to international students?
Harvard awards need-based financial aid to students across its multiple schools. Unlike merit-based scholarships, which are awarded based on achievements or academic records, need-based aid is given to students depending on their ability to pay for tuition.
Admissions to the undergraduate college is need-blind, including for international students, which means that a student's ability to pay full tuition is not considered during the application process. Unlike the majority of U.S. colleges and universities, international students do not disproportionately pay full tuition to attend.
In a post last month on Truth Social, Trump criticized Harvard for enrolling a significant percentage of international students.
“Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to,” he wrote. “Nobody told us that!”
Most governments do not pay for their students to study abroad. With the exception of some government-funded scholarship programs, most international students pay their own tuition, receive need-based aid or earn merit scholarships from external organizations. Harvard is among a handful of wealthier universities that do offer financial aid to foreign students.
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AP writers Collin Binkley and Cheyanne Mumphrey contributed.
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