The administration of United States president Donald Trump has formally barred Harvard University from enrolling international students.
The administration has said the institution failed to address national security risks on campus.
In a proclamation on Wednesday night, Trump said he would immediately block the Ivy League school from enrolling new international students or exchange visitors. He has also ordered the State Department to review whether the visas of current foreign students should be revoked.
The sweeping action came as the Trump administration continued to accuse Harvard of maintaining links with foreign countries, particularly China, which it said posed a national security threat to the United States.
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“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long warned that foreign adversaries [opponents] and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions and spread false information for political or other reasons,” the document said.
“Our adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China, try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa programme for improper purposes and using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.”
The proclamation takes effect immediately and will remain in place for at least six months, according to the White House.
The move – along with the State Department’s announcement last week that it would “aggressively” revoke Chinese students’ visas – is expected to further deepen tensions between the US and China, whose trade negotiations remain stalled.
This is not the first time Chinese students enrolled in advanced science and engineering programmes have been accused of posing a national security threat. Washington has long-standing concerns that Chinese students may be involved in espionage activities to strengthen Beijing’s military capabilities.
Harvard currently hosts more than 10,000 international students, making up roughly 30 per cent of its student body, including about 2,000 from China.
In a statement, Harvard said that Trump’s order “is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights”.
“Harvard will continue to protect its international students,” it said.
More than 1,000 international students in the US have had their visas or legal status revoked
The stand-off with Harvard is also part of Trump’s broader campaign against elite academic institutions, which began straight after his inauguration in January.
Alongside Harvard, other Ivy League institutions like Columbia and Princeton have been under scrutiny for allegedly fostering antisemitism in the wake of widespread pro-Palestinian demonstrations over Gaza. They are now facing substantial federal funding cuts.
The showdown with Harvard escalated when the Department of Homeland Security ordered the university to submit detailed records of its international student population – a request the university refused.
In response, the department announced in late May that it intended to revoke Harvard’s authorisation to enrol international students.
Harvard filed a lawsuit challenging the decision, calling the administration’s actions politically motivated and damaging to academic freedom. Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the revocation from taking effect.
