President Trump aimed his presidential pen once again at international education, signing a pair of orders late Wednesday: one putting in place a long-anticipated travel ban and the other a second attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling foreign students.
The ban, a sequel to a policy from the president’s first term, blocks entry to the United States to visitors from a dozen countries and limits travel from another seven. Students and scholars are included in both the full and partial travel restrictions.
Among the countries fully barred is Iran, which sends nearly 12,500 students to American colleges. Although the Iranian student population in the United States is dwarfed by major senders like China and India, it punches above its weight. Iranian students are disproportionately enrolled in graduate programs and in STEM fields, and the order threatens to sever a critical pipeline of foreign talent.
The final version of the previous ban had carved out a special exemption for Iranian students. President Joseph Biden lifted the order when he entered the White House in 2021.
Unlike that earlier effort — which went into effect when some visa holders were midflight on their way to the United States — Trump had telegraphed plans for travel restrictions since his inauguration. But much like the first time, the ban, which takes effect on Monday, is certain to draw both criticism and legal challenges.
The Harvard directive, meanwhile, appears to be a direct response to a setback in court last week, when a federal judge in Boston stopped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from yanking the university’s authorization to participate in the student-visa system. Now the administration is doing an end run around that ruling by ordering a freeze on Harvard students and scholars entering the United States, an extraordinary use of presidential power.
The proclamation, which does not spell out how the suspension will be carried out, is in effect for six months and invokes a law more commonly used against people from countries with corruption or human-rights abuses. It also directs the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to consider whether to revoke the visas of current Harvard students.
In the order, Trump said he was “compelled” to act after concluding that Harvard “is no longer a trustworthy steward” of international students. “They jeopardize the integrity of the entire United States student and exchange-visitor-visa system, compromise national security, and embolden other institutions to similarly disregard the rule of law.”
Harvard had sued to stop the termination of its international-student certification — a step typically taken only when a college closes or is found to have committed visa fraud. In its lawsuit, the university said the administration had overstepped its authority, failed to follow its own rules, and breached academic freedom.
In a statement, a Harvard spokesman called the latest action unlawful and said the university would protect its international students. “This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”
Harvard enrolls 6,800 foreign students, almost 28 percent of its total student body. Many are fearful and have considered transferring to another college, the university’s head of immigration services said in a court filing last week.
Wednesday’s action ratchets up the administration’s white-hot clash with Harvard, which has included terminating billions of dollars in federal grants.
And taken together, the two proclamations underscore the extent to which international students are simultaneously in the crosshairs of two of the most contentious and virulent issues of the Trump presidency, its opposition to immigration and its fight to force higher education to bend to government’s agenda.
In the past week, the administration said it would “aggressively revoke” the visas of some Chinese students and shut down all new student-visa interviews worldwide — during the peak of applications for the fall’s incoming class.
Earlier this spring, the government canceled, then restored, thousands of international students’ legal status, often for minor legal infractions, and threatened a crackdown on recent graduates on a special work program.
Restrictions on international students are a powerful lever to use against colleges, many of which have come to rely on the higher tuition paid by foreign students in a time of leaner budgets and domestic demographic declines. At the graduate level, visa holders are the backbone of American research and science.
The presidential proclamation specifically suspends F, M, and J visas, or student and scholarly visas, even for countries like Cuba and Venezuela on which it imposes partial limits. The countries targeted for complete bans include a few, such as Afghanistan and Haiti, that are sources of refugee and displaced students.
Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a coalition of more than 570 college leaders, expressed concern about the impact of a “cascading series of policy decisions that are deterring, discouraging, and limiting international students.”
She questioned national-security justification for both orders, noting that international students are more closely vetted and monitored than other visa holders.
“It feels like one issue gets resolved and another springs up,” Feldblum said. The latest actions “will create more uncertainty, more chaos, and more confusion” for students and colleges.
Harvard and other colleges are scrambling to support and reassure international students, even as they acknowledge that they do not have the answers. One international-student director, who asked not to be named because she is not approved to speak with reporters, said her office has been inundated with questions from incoming and current students alike — although the travel ban applies specifically to foreign citizens who are outside the United States and do not have a valid visa. And while she and her staff members have prioritized outreach to students from affected countries, she said the distress among students is widespread.
“It upends people’s lives,” the director said of the administration’s action. “They’re scared.”
