Harvard won a temporary relief after a judge blocked president Donald Trump from barring international students from entering the U.S. to study at the university over alleged “national security” concerns.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued a two-page temporary restraining order on Thursday to rule that the administration cannot enforce Trump's proclamation from taking effect.
The Boston-based judge ruled that Trump's latest directive prohibiting foreign nationals from entering the country to study at Harvard for the next six months would cause "immediate and irreparable injury" before the courts have a chance to review the case.
The move marks a legal setback for Trump after an ongoing standoff between the Ivy League school and the Republican president escalated.
It came a day after Trump blocked foreign students and researchers enrolled in Harvard from entering the country.
In addition to barring incoming students, Trump also gave his Secretary of State Marco Rubio the go-ahead to start revoking the visas of foreign students who are studying at the college.
Trump cited national security concerns as the reason to bar international students from entering the U.S. to pursue studies at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university.
Trump claims that Harvard refused to give his administration information about "known illegal activity" on its campus allegedly committed by international students.
Reacting swiftly to Trump’s order, Harvard University asked a federal judge to block the government’s directive immediately on Thursday evening and filed a new claim against the administration.
Harvard said in the court filing that Trump had violated federal law by failing to back up his claims about national security.
"The Proclamation does not deem the entry of an alien or class of aliens to be detrimental to the interests of the United States, because noncitizens who are impacted by the Proclamation can enter the United States just so long as they go somewhere other than Harvard," the school said.
The Trump administration previously signalled that it would try to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students, but a federal judge issued an injunction to stop the White House from interfering in the college's enrolment practices.
It appears that the president is trying to interfere with Harvard's foreign student enrolment by other means.
“Admission to the United States to study at an 'elite' American university is a privilege, not a right,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X. “This Department of Justice will vigorously defend the President’s proclamation suspending the entry of new foreign students at Harvard University based on national security.”
Harvard issued a response to the Trump administration's order.
“This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights,” university spokesperson Jason Newton said in a statement. “Harvard will continue to protect its international students.”
The Trump White House demanded that Harvard overhaul its admission and disciplinary policies in April or face losing its funding. He has also accused the college of antisemitism over its handling of pro-Palestinian student protests.
Harvard – unlike other universities, like Columbia – refused to bend to the president's pressure. In response, the White House blocked more than $2bn in federal funding from the university.
Since then, Trump has been on a mission to force Harvard to comply with his orders. In early May, he threatened to cancel Harvard's tax exempt status, and later considered giving $3bn in the university's grants to trade schools.
Lawrence Summers, a President Emeritus at Harvard and former Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton, called Trump's move "punitive extortion".
"President @realDonaldTrump's latest salvo against @Harvard clearly represents punitive extortion rather than any seriously thought through policy to promote national security. I hope and trust that the judiciary will again restrain the President in the name of lawful government and the Constitution," Summers wrote on X.
While he said that "Harvard should make a variety of changes" to its policies, he insisted that "extortion is the wrong way to bring them about and will ultimately prove to be counterproductive in terms of our national security as we alienate allies, threaten our scientific cutting edge and undermine the major contribution universities make to the national economy."
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