The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll all foreign students on Thursday, telling all current foreign students they must transfer schools in order to keep their visas.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem sent a letter to Harvard informing the university that its certification for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) had been terminated. Noem further told the school that it can no longer enroll foreign students and that all existing foreign students more transfer schools or lose their legal status.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said in a press release. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”
Harvard has been a consistent target of the Trump administration because of its “toxic campus climate,” including “permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals,” and “inaccurate” reporting of foreign funding, including from China.
“Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide,” DHS’s press release notes.
More than 27 percent (6,793 students) of Harvard’s student body was made up of foreign students in the 2024-2025 school year, according to the school.
Harvard said it would attempt to find a legal route to stop the revocation.
“The government’s action is unlawful,” Harvard said in a statement. “We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University — and this nation — immeasurably. We are working quickly to provide guidance and support to members of our community. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”
DHS pointed to multiple instances of bad leadership and policy at Harvard, notably the 55 percent increase in crime from 2022 to 2023 (including a 295 percent increase in aggravated assaults and a 560 percent increase in robbery), as well as the school’s fealty to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology that may violate civil rights law.
As The Federalist reported, Harvard has already endeavored to rebrand its DEI offices, likely to avoid public scrutiny and maintain the ideology’s operation in secret.
Outside of DHS, the Trump administration has gone after Harvard’s grant funding, with Education Secretary Linda McMahon telling the school to stop seeking grant funding, as “none will be provided.”
McMahon slammed its DEI practices in a scathing letter that also detailed the total diminishment of a once-prestigious institution:
In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing “remedial math” program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this “acclaimed university?” Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected?
Whatever Harvard’s legal actions look like, there is a deep bench of far-left, wannabe dictator district judges who seem eager to stop the Trump administration from doing its job.
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
