Trump Administration Blocks Harvard International Student Enrollment, Forces Thousands to Transfer

The Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students on Thursday (22 May), forcing existing students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status.

Termination

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to terminate Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.

Noem accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”

The department said Harvard’s leadership “has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students.”

The move affects thousands of students at the Cambridge, Massachusetts institution. Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in the 2024 to 2025 school year, representing 27 per cent of its total enrollment.

Harvard Faces 72-Hour Compliance Deadline After Refusing Information Requests

The action came after Harvard refused to provide information that Noem had previously demanded about foreign student visa holders who attend the university.

In April, Noem threatened to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification if the university did not comply with her demand for information about purported “criminality and misconduct of foreign students on campus.”

Harvard refused to provide the required information and ignored a follow-up request from the Department’s Office of General Council, according to DHS.

The university now has 72 hours to comply with a list of demands for an “opportunity” to enrol international students again.

Chinese nationals made up the biggest population of foreign students in 2022, with 1,016 students. Students from Canada, India, South Korea, the UK, Germany, Australia, Singapore and Japan followed.

Noem said it was a “privilege, not a right” for universities to enrol foreign students and “benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”

Trump Administration Expands University Crackdown Beyond Harvard Campus

The clampdown marks a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets.

During a Fox News interview, Noem confirmed the administration was considering similar moves at other universities, including Columbia University in New York.

“Absolutely, we are,” Noem said. “This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together.”

Trump has frozen about US$3 billion in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, leading the university to sue to restore the funding.

The US Department of Health and Human Services terminated US$60 million in federal grants to Harvard on Monday because the institution failed to address antisemitic harassment and ethnic discrimination on campus.

Harvard rejected the allegations and called the government’s action “unlawful.” The university said the retaliatory action “threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”

A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration could not end foreign students’ legal status without following proper regulatory procedures in a separate lawsuit.

The ruling’s impact on the Harvard action remains unclear.

Foreign undergraduates at US colleges typically pay full tuition, providing an important revenue source for institutions.

International students at Harvard contributed US$384 million to the local economy in the 2023 to 2024 school year, supporting about 3,900 jobs through housing, dining, retail and other expenditures.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, said the action “needlessly punishes thousands of innocent students.”

Trump’s administration has also tried to revoke student visas and green cards of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests since taking office in January.