US president says it would jeopardize national security to allow university to keep hosting international students
Donald Trump signed a proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard University, the White House said on Wednesday.
The proclamation is the US president’s latest attempt to choke the Ivy League school from an international pipeline that accounts for a quarter of the student body, and a further escalation in the White House’s fight with the institution.
In an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump declared that it would jeopardize national security to allow Harvard to continue hosting foreign students on its campus.
“I have determined that the entry of the class of foreign nationals described above is detrimental to the interests of the United States because, in my judgment, Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,” Trump wrote in the order.
The Trump administration has been engaged in a tense standoff with Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university.
The administration has demanded the university implement a broad list of far-reaching reforms that the university say would undermine its independence.
Since then, Trump officials have cut millions of additional dollars in research funding to the university and has ordered federal agencies to cut ties with the school.
Recently, the administration has moved aggressively to try to block the school from enrolling foreign students. Last month, it revoked the university’s student and exchange visitor program certification amid a battle over a records request with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Harvard says it has complied with the request, but the government said the school’s response was insufficient.
A federal court in Boston blocked DHS from barring international students at Harvard last week.
Last week, the administration also ordered US consulates worldwide to conduct social media screening of every visa applicant seeking to travel to the university.
Trump’s order on Wednesday invokes a different legal authority than the earlier move by DHS. The legal justification for the ban, Trump said, are sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act, “which authorize the President to suspend entry of any class of aliens whose entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”.
Trump officials have repeatedly raised the stakes and sought new fronts to pressure Harvard, cutting more than $2.6bn in research grants and moving to end all federal contracts with the university. The latest threat has targeted Harvard’s roughly 7,000 international students, who account for half the enrollment at some Harvard graduate schools.
“President Trump wants our institutions to have foreign students, but believes that the foreign students should be people that can love our country,” the White House said in a fact sheet about the proclamation.
The proclamation suspends the entry into the US of any new Harvard student on a student visa, and directs the secretary of state to consider revoking existing visas.
