U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced on Thursday that the Trump administration canceled Harvard University’s visa program over the school’s failure to provide her department with information about Jew-hatred on campus.
“It is a privilege to enroll foreign students, and it is also a privilege to employ aliens on campus,” Noem wrote to Harvard’s director of immigration services, Maureen Martin.
“As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies, you have lost this privilege,” she wrote.
Following the revocation, Harvard is prohibited from issuing new student visas, and its current students must transfer to another university to maintain their legal status in the United States.
Harvard has 6,793 international students, making up more than 27% of the student body, per the school’s website.
The secretary gave Harvard a 72-hour ultimatum to have its visa privileges restored if it complies with the department’s demands, including requests for records about student visa-holders committing illegal activity, threatening other students or engaging in protest.
“This action should not surprise you and is the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements,” Noem wrote.
The Trump administration has cancelled or frozen billions of dollars in funding over allegations that the school violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act over its treatment of Jewish students and its rejection of the administration’s demands for change.
Harvard is suing the Trump administration to restore the funding, and a spokesman for the Ivy League school told JNS that the school believes that Noem’s revocation of its visa privileges is unlawful.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” Jason Newton, director of media relations and communications at Harvard, told JNS.
“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,” Newton said.
