Court halts Trump’s ban on new foreign students at Harvard

President Donald Trump had a challenging day as his disagreement with his once close companion, Elon Musk, took a turn for the worse on Thursday evening when a federal judge halted his attack on Harvard University.

Trump had issued an executive order on Wednesday named Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University. This order aimed to suspend the university’s student visa program.

He claimed it was a national security issue, as he also restricted travel from a dozen countries. 

However, on Thursday, the university officials reacted by submitting an updated complaint, labeling Trump’s order as a way to bypass a previous federal judge’s ruling. This ruling had prevented the Department of Homeland Security from rescinding Harvard’s authorization to enroll foreign students.

US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs ultimately agreed, extending her temporary restraining order through June 20, Axios reports.

She also scheduled a June 16 hearing on whether to extend the restraining order as the case continues, according to the Boston Globe. 

As night fell, the Trump administration slammed the ruling, with Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin saying it ‘delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers’ under Article II.

‘It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuitions to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments; that fact hasn’t changed,’ she argued.

‘The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this,’ McLaughlin continued, claiming: ‘We have the law, the facts and common sense on our side.’

Lawyers for Harvard University filed an amended complaint against the Trump administration on Thursday – just one day after President Trump signed an executive order banning foreign students from attending the school 

The president issued an executive order Wednesday entitled Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University, which suspends the school’s student visa program 

But lawyers for the university argued against Trump’s legal justification for the action – a federal law allowing him to block a ‘class of aliens’ deemed detrimental to the nation’s interests.

Targeting only those who are coming to the U.S. to study at Harvard doesn´t qualify as a “class of aliens,”‘ Harvard said in its filing, noting that those same students could apply for a visa to attend a different American university, per the New York Times.

‘The President´s actions thus are not undertaken to protect the “interests of the United States,” but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard,’ the university wrote.

The president has been butting heads with officials at the Ivy League school ever since he accused it of failing to address antisemitism on campus.

The White House issued a list of demands from the school earlier this year  – including for it to ban any student who is hostile to American values and to allow for an audit of faculty and students to measure ‘viewpoint diversity’ at the school.

When university officials then refused, the Trump administration pulled nearly $3 billion in federal grants and contracts from the university – prompting it to sue.

Trump also tried to get the Department of Homeland Security to revoke foreign students’ visas at the school, but last month the university sued, saying it violated its First Amendment rights.

The amended complaint on Thursday came in that lawsuit.

Harvard accuses Trump of retaliating against it for refusing to meet his demands

The university also claims Secretary of State Marco Rubio targeted Harvard in a ‘pilot program’ to conduct enhanced vetting of visa applicants’ social media use

It argues that his executive action constitutes a ‘concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard’s exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the “ideology” of its faculty and students.

‘With the strike of a pen, the DHS Secretary and the President have sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the university and its mission,’ lawyers for the school wrote, according to the Boston Globe.

‘Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.’ 

The filing on Thursday also argues that the government’s efforts to limit its foreign student population ‘fundamentally alter the education that Harvard endeavors to provide to all its students – including domestic students – as it prepares them to contribute to and lead in our global society.’

Trump’s executive order appears to only affect newly-arriving international students, including about 300 first-year students who are set to begin classes in the fall.   

But he also urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider revoking current students’ visas – with an estimated 5,000 foreign nationals enrolled at the school. 

Harvard also claims in its amended complaint that Rubio, in a cable dated May 30,  announced a ‘pilot program’ to conduct enhanced vetting of visa applicants’ social media use – and chose Harvard as the sole school for the experiment.

‘Harvard´s more than 7,000 F-1 and J-1 visa holders – and their dependents – have become pawns in the government’s escalating campaign of retaliation,’ Harvard wrote in its filing.

University President Alan Garber said the school’s international office was reaching out to students who may be effected by Trump’s executive order

Shortly after Harvard submitted the amended complaint, University President Alan Garber issued a statement saying the school’s international office was reaching out to students who may be effected by Trump’s executive order.

He wrote that the university was developing ‘contingency plans’ to ensure the international students could continue their work at the Ivy League and throughout the next academic year.

‘Harvard will continue to protect its international students,’ school officials said in a statement as international students like Yonas Nuguse weigh their options.

Nuguse, 21, a student in Ethiopia who endured the Tigray conflict, internet and phone shutdowns, and the COVID-19 pandemic, was accepted to the school in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was set to begin in the fall.

It was a hard fought victory for him as the war in the country’s Tigray region forced schools to close in many parts of the province. 

Nuguse instead took a gap year to study and save money to pay for his TOEFL English proficiency test in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia´s capital.

‘The war affected me a great deal and when I found out the news that I was accepted to Harvard, I was ecstatic. I knew it was a proud moment for my family, teachers, mentors and friends, who were instrumental in my achievement,’ he said.

Yonas Nuguse, 21 years old, destined for Harvard University working on a computer at Wemezeker National Library in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Friday

An aspiring economist, Nuguse was the only student accepted to Harvard this year from Kalamino Special High School, which caters to gifted students from underprivileged backgrounds from across Tigray.

After receiving acceptances also to Columbia University and Amherst College, Nuguse chose Harvard, which he had long dreamed of attending. He said he hopes it will work out to attend Harvard.

Nuguse was granted a visa to study at Harvard, and he worries it might be too late to reverse his decision and attend another university anyway. He received an email from Harvard last week, telling him to proceed with his registration and highlighting a judge’s order in Harvard’s favor in the dispute over foreign enrollment.

‘I hope the situation is temporary and I can enroll on time to go on and realize my dream far from reality in Ethiopia,’ he said.

Jing, a 23-year-old master´s student, meanwhile is currently completing an internship in China this summer, and is now unsure if he can reenter the U.S. for the fall semester.

‘It is tiring, we all feel numb now. Trump just makes big news headlines once every few days since he got back to the White House,’ said Jing, who agreed to speak under his family name out of concern about retaliation from the Trump administration.

Jing said he is going to watch and see what happens for now, in case the move against international students is just a negotiating tactic by the Trump administration that does not stick.