Harvard University sued the Trump administration a day after the Department of Homeland Security revoked the Ivy League school’s ability to enroll foreign students.
A complaint filed in federal district court in Massachusetts on May 23 called the move a “blatant violation” of the First Amendment, Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedures Act. The school said it would push for a temporary restraining order against the administration’s decision.
In a message to the Harvard community, the university’s president, Alan Garber, condemned what he called an “unlawful and unwarranted action.”
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“It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams,” he said.
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a letter to Harvard’s leadership on May 22 saying the school’s ability to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which is a prerequisite for colleges and universities to enroll international students, would be terminated “effective immediately.” All international students would need to transfer to another university to stay in the United States, she said.
“This action should not surprise you and is the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements,” Noem wrote in the letter.
The punishment dated to April 16, when Noem first mandated that Harvard produce troves of detailed information about every international student attending the school.
“This demand was unprecedented, seeking information far beyond what DHS’s regulations require Harvard to maintain and report, and far beyond any request Harvard has received in its more than 70 years hosting foreign students under the F-1 visa program,” the university’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
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Still, the university said it had complied within the scope of federal law and its reporting requirements, producing thousands of data points about its entire student population with F-1 visas.
Those responses, Noem said on May 22, were “insufficient.” She then gave the university 72 hours to deliver more information, including “any and all” disciplinary records of nonimmigrant students enrolled at the school over the last five years.
Noem’s unprecedented act, preventing Harvard from enrolling foreign students, marked arguably the biggest escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with the university, which has already had billions of dollars in federal research funding frozen. The campus is separately being investigated over whether it should maintain its tax-exempt status. The effective ban at Harvard created a chilling effect at other colleges nationwide, while imperiling operations at the storied Cambridge, Massachusetts campus.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the school’s lawyers argued in the new complaint.
Harvard’s nearly 7,000 international students comprise roughly a quarter of the university’s population. As the summer begins, many are awaiting further guidance from the school about what they should do next. The government’s actions came just days before graduation.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harvard sues Trump over ban on international students
