President Donald Trump has taken action to prevent foreign individuals from attending Harvard University, marking a new development in his ongoing dispute with the prestigious university.
On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order named Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University, which pauses the university’s student visa program and emphasizes that the program is a privilege granted by the government, not an automatic entitlement.
Furthermore, he reiterated his accusations that the university had violated federal regulations and stressed the significance of restricting the number of international students for national security purposes. This decision aligns with his previous actions of imposing travel limitations on citizens from several countries.
‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long warned that foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions and spread false information for political or other reasons,’ the executive order states.
‘Our adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.’
Harvard has nearly 6,800 international students, who made up more than 27 percent of its enrollment in the past academic year, according to the BBC.
About one-third of those international students are from China, and Trump has previously accused the Ivy League school of ‘coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.’
In his executive order on Wednesday – one of several that he issued – Trump further claims that Harvard failed ‘to identify and address misconduct by those foreign students’ amid his crackdown on universities that allowed antisemitic protests on campus during the war in Gaza.
President Donald Trump has officially declared he is restricting foreign nationals from studying at Harvard University
The executive order marks an escalation in Trump’s clash with the Ivy League school
‘In my judgment, it presents an unacceptable risk to our nation’s security for an academic institution to refuse to provide sufficient information, when asked, about known instances of misconduct and criminality committed by its students,’ he wrote, claiming that crime rates at the Massachusetts campus have ‘drastically risen.’
‘When a university refuses to uphold its legal obligations, including its recordkeeping and reporting obligations, the consequences ripple far beyond the campus,’ the executive order continues.
‘They jeopardize the integrity of the entire United States student and exchange visa system , compromise national security and embolden other institutions to similarly disregard the rule of law.’
The president then went on to reassert that Harvard is working with the Chinese Communist Party, claiming that it received more than $150 million from the country over the past decade.
In return, Trump writes that the Ivy League has ‘repeatedly hosted and trained members of a Chinese Communist Party paramilitary organization,’ citing a probe by the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
That same probe also claims Harvard has partnered with the Chinese ‘on research that could advance China’s military modernization.’
Trump claims in the executive that Harvard failed ‘to identify and address misconduct by those foreign students’ amid his crackdown on universities that allowed antisemitic protests on campus during the war in Gaza
The president concludes the executive order by saying that rather than admit ‘hardworking Americans,’ the school is enrolling ‘students from non-egalitarian nations, including nations that seek the destruction of the United States and its allies or the extermination of entire peoples.
‘It is not in the interest of the United States to further compound Harvard’s discrimination against nonpreferred races, national origins, shared ancestries or religions by further reducing opportunities for American students through excessive foreign student enrollment,’ Trump writes.
He adds that the ban will remain in effect ‘until such time as the university shares the information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public.’
Trump has spoken about limiting Harvard’s foreign students for weeks, suggesting last month that the school should cap its international student population at 15 percent.
He even tried to revoke current students’ visas, but a judge last month ordered the university and Justice Department attorneys to work out an agreement that would stop prevent the students’ visas from being revoked as students protested Trump’s orders.
Trump has been discussing capping Harvard’s foreign student body for weeks, leading to protests at the Cambridge campus
Harvard has denied Trump administration charges of alleged bias against conservatives, fostering antisemitism on campus and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.
The university has said losing that right would affect about one quarter of its student body and devastate the school.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
