Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enroll international students

The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday revoked Harvard University’s certification to admit foreign students, making good on a threat by President Donald Trump and escalating his fight with the Ivy League school.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem ordered the agency to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, which allows U.S. universities to admit international students, for allegedly allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist” foreigners “to harass and physically assault individuals … and obstruct its once-venerable learning environment.” The secretary also accused the university of working with the Chinese Communist Party by hosting and training members of its paramilitary group.

The decision means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing international students at Harvard must transfer or lose their legal status, Noem said.

Noem gave the school 72 hours to turn over a list of records on international students to regain its certification before the upcoming academic year. DHS is seeking disciplinary records as well as electronic records, video and audio footage of international students who engaged in illegal activity, violence, threats to personnel or students, or protest activity on or off campus over the past five years.

If the administration follows through with the decertification, the action threatens to transform the population and culture at the nation’s oldest university, where more than a quarter of the students come from other countries. It also represents an escalation of the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and Harvard weeks after the school refused to submit to far-reaching policy changes and government oversight.

In a statement Thursday, Noem said, “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. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

Harvard spokesman Jason Newton called the Trump administration’s action “unlawful” and said in a written statement that the university is “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.”

He said the university is working to provide guidance and support to members of its community. During the 2024-2025 academic year, Harvard enrolled 6,793 international students, who make up about 27% of the university’s total enrollment – a percentage that has steadily risen over the past two decades.

“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” Newton said.

The revocation arrives a month after Noem demanded that Harvard submit records on foreign students alleged to have engaged in “illegal and violent activities” or face losing certification. Homeland Security said the university refused and ignored a follow-up request from the department’s general counsel.

Harvard has been caught in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and faced several rounds of federal funding freezes and cuts totaling more than $2.7 billion. Trump also has threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, while his antisemitism task force said it is reviewing more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates.

Losing international students also would represent a financial hit, though it might not be as severe as it would be at other schools that rely on foreign students to pay full tuition. Harvard offers financial aid to students from foreign countries on the same basis as U.S. students.

“Harvard has turned their once-great institution into a hotbed of anti-American, antisemitic, pro-terrorist agitators,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson on Thursday. “They have repeatedly failed to take action to address the widespread problems negatively impacting American students, and now they must face the consequences of their actions.”

Will Creeley, the legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the Trump administration’s campaign to root out anti-Americanism and antisemitism is itself un-American. He said Homeland Security’s “demand that Harvard produce audio and video footage of all protest activity involving international students over the last five years is gravely alarming.”

“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” Creeley said. “The administration’s demand for a surveillance state at Harvard is anathema to American freedom.”

If maintained, the decision has enormous consequences not just for Harvard but for thousands of foreign students who are enrolled there or who plan to enroll this fall. Transferring to another school at this date is not easy to do.

The directive on international students is the latest blow in the fight the administration is waging against Harvard. In April, the administration threatened funding at Harvard for allegedly allowing antisemitism and also diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the Trump White House wants to root out. The administration demanded the university upend its hiring, admissions and governance, and submit to years-long federal oversight of multiple aspects of its operations. Days later, Harvard sued to block the Trump administration from withholding federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decision making” at the university.

Higher education experts say the Trump administration’s latest move against the university is unconscionable and violates legal procedures.

“This is wrong, it is small-minded and it’s illegal,” said Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education. “There are processes in place to revoke an institution’s certification. The administration has not even nodded to any of those. So once again the administration has asserted a crime, exerted a penalty without any of those pesky little details about evidence and proof.”

He said the announcement would have a chilling effect on international students who want to attend not just Harvard but other U.S. universities, “who will see this for what it is, which is us rolling up the rug and saying, ‘You’re not welcome here.’ ”

There are procedures in place for the government to bar a school from the student visa program, but the Trump administration appears to have ignored them all, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, an education and advocacy group.

“Even if there were a credible case that the Department of Homeland Security wanted to advance, they have not complied with their own regulations and processes,” she said.

She said typical rationales for removing a school from the program apply to schools that change ownership or fail to complete an application for recertification. “That’s not what’s happening here,” she said.

And even if there were a legitimate rationale, she said, there is an established system for decertification that includes an appeals process – none of which occurred.

Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and law professor at Emory University, said he anticipates Harvard will take legal action to stop the revocation.

“The decision to terminate is obviously retaliatory, poorly written, terribly reasoned and does not seem to follow the regulations,” Kuck said.

International students have come under immense pressure as the Trump administration has abruptly terminated visas and detained students who protested Israel’s war in Gaza. Homeland Security last month paused deactivating student files in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and said it would restore the records that had been taken out of the database after a flurry of lawsuits successfully challenged the practice. But university leaders and student advocates say the administration has created a climate of fear.

More than 1 million international students attend colleges in the United States every year, contributing nearly $44 billion to the national economy, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

They play an outsize role in the economics of higher education, in that many international students pay full tuition. They also help U.S. students, Feldblum argued, by exposing them to diverse points of view and backgrounds and by creating a critical mass of students to support certain departments, such as computer science and engineering.

“For colleges and universities across the country – big and small, rural and urban, elite or community college – international students play a vital role,” she said.