U.S. President Donald Trump’s battle with American higher education escalated again this week, throwing thousands of academic careers into turmoil, and more disruptions may be on the way.
In a statement published Thursday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it was revoking Harvard University’s right to host international students, both for incoming admissions and for those already studying at the institution.
“Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the statement reads.
As justification for the move, DHS claims university leadership “has created an unsafe campus environment,” citing the presence of “members of a (Chinese Communist Party) paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide,” as well as the alleged harassment of Jewish students by “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators.”
The statement claims that many of the described “agitators” were students from outside the United States. University data shows that Harvard enrols nearly 6,800 international students as of the 2024-25 school year, or just over 27 per cent of the student population. Records from the Harvard International Office count 555 Canadians among the international student body.
In recent weeks, the university administration has been vocal in resisting the White House, filing a lawsuit in April to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze research funding and publicly denouncing the government pressure against it.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” university president Alan Garber wrote in an open letter to the school’s community.
“We have made it abundantly clear that we do not take lightly our moral duty to fight antisemitism … These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate.”
A banner message on the website for the Harvard International Office reads that the university “is aware of the (DHS) order,” and that the school is “committed to maintaining our ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University and this nation.”
“More information and updates will be provided as they become available,” it reads.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signalled that the country’s most prestigious institution may only be the first to see its enrolment system disrupted.
“[Harvard has] lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in the Thursday release.
“Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”
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Are you or is someone you know an international student at a U.S. college or university? Are you concerned about the impacts on academic studies brought by revoking international student enrolments? Have you reconsidered pursuing a post-secondary program in the United States?
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