Federal judge blocks Trump administration from barring foreign student enrolment at Harvard

John Gobin, a Canadian law student at Harvard University, says it’s been a stressful time as the process plays out in the legal system.

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s enrollment of foreign students, an action the Ivy League school decried as unconstitutional retaliation for defying the White House’s political demands.

In its lawsuit filed earlier Friday in federal court in Boston, Harvard said the government’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” Harvard said in its suit. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs puts the sanction against Harvard on hold, pending the lawsuit.

The Trump administration move has thrown campus into disarray days before graduation. Harvard said in the suit. International students who run labs, teach courses, assist professors and participate in Harvard sports are now left deciding whether to transfer or risk losing legal status to stay in the country, according to the filing.

The impact would be heaviest at graduate schools such as the Harvard Kennedy School, where about half the student body comes from abroad, and Harvard Business School, which is about one-third international. Along with the impact on current students, the move would block thousands of students who were planning to come for summer and fall classes.

Harvard said it immediately puts the school at a disadvantage as it competes for the world’s top students. Even if it regains the ability to host students, “future applicants may shy away from applying out of fear of further reprisals from the government,” the suit said.

If the government’s action stands, Harvard said, the university would be unable to offer admission to new international students for at least the next two academic years. Schools that have that certification withdrawn by the federal government are ineligible to reapply until one year afterward, Harvard said.

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the action Thursday, accusing Harvard of creating an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, contending the school had hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.

Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, He said Harvard would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. Harvard has said it will respond at a later time to allegations first raised by House Republicans about coordination with the Chinese Communist Party.

Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and U.S. treasury secretary, wrote on X that the decision would mean losing key people, “some small fraction of whom are going to go on to be Prime Ministers of countries who’ve now been turned into enemies of the United States.” He said the administration’s action “is madness.”

The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that Harvard provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.

Harvard says it provided “thousands of data points” in response to Noem’s April 16 demand. Her letter on Thursday said Harvard failed to satisfy her request, but the school said she failed to provide any further explanation.

“It makes generalized statements about campus environment and `anti-Americanism,’ again without articulating any rational link between those statements and the decision to retaliate against international students,” the suit said.

Harvard’s lawsuit said the administration violated the government’s own regulations for withdrawing a school’s certification.

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, or failing to employ qualified professional personnel.

Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.

The lawsuit is separate from the university’s earlier one challenging more than US$2 billion in federal cuts imposed by the Republican administration.

By Collin Binkley

Associated Press writer Annie Ma contributed to this report.