The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the college to fall in line with the president’s agenda.
The administration notified Harvard about the decision after a back-and-forth in recent days over the legality of a sprawling records request as part of the US department of homeland security’s investigation, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations.
“I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked,” according to a letter sent to the university by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.
Spokespeople for the department of homeland security and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On its website on Thursday, Harvard said it is aware of the US department of homeland security’s order to terminate its student and exchange visitor programme certification for the 2025-26 academic year.
“Harvard is committed to maintaining our ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University and this nation. More information and updates will be provided as they become available,” it said.
According to Harvard’s website there are 24 Irish students currently studying there and 26 scholars registered. Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar is Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership’s spring 2025 Hauser Leader.
The Trump administration has wielded threats, onerous investigations and funding cuts against Harvard University in what began as the work of a task force the president commissioned to address antisemitism on campus. It has sprawled into a multifaceted pressure campaign that leverages the scope and power of the federal government.
The effort involves at least eight investigations spanning at least six agencies, including the departments of justice, education, and health and human services. Some of those agencies, and others, including the department of veterans affairs, have pulled or frozen grants from the school and its research partners, totalling nearly $4 billion.
The administration targeted Harvard — and other elite schools, such as Columbia University — as part of a broader political and legal strategy to reshape academia’s race-based admissions policies and perceived liberal bias. While not being officially framed as a personal vendetta for president Donald Trump, the government’s increasingly punitive actions have come after Harvard resisted many of the changes his administration demanded to admissions, curriculum and hiring practices.
So far, the moves have not convinced the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to come back to the negotiating table, even if school officials have privately expressed concerns about the lasting damage that feuding with the administration could cause.
The university sued after the administration threatened to take away billions in federal funding and has pushed back strongly against the various investigations, denying allegations of wrongdoing and maintaining that it is committed to following the law.
“The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government,” Harvard’s president, Dr. Alan Garber, wrote last month. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
