Harvard urges judge to bar Trump from closing doors for international students

By Reuters June 16, 2025 | 04:40 pm PT

Harvard College graduate, Iris Lang of Florida, watches a photo session on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 23, 2025. Photo by Reuters

Lawyers for Harvard University urged a federal judge on Monday to extend an order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.

Ian Gershengorn, a lawyer for Harvard, told U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston that an injunction was necessary to ensure Trump’s administration could not implement his latest bid to curtail the school’s ability to host international students.

The judge scheduled the hearing after issuing a temporary restraining order on June 6 preventing the administration from implementing a proclamation that Trump had signed a day earlier. A preliminary injunction would provide longer-term relief to Harvard.

Gershengorn argued that Trump signed the proclamation to retaliate against Harvard in violation of its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment for refusing to accede to his administration’s demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.

"The proclamation is a plain violation of the First Amendment," Gershengorn said.

Almost 6,800 international students attended Harvard in its most recent school year, making up about 27% of the student population of the prestigious school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. China and India are among the top countries of origin for these students.

The Trump administration has launched a multi-front attack on the oldest and wealthiest U.S. university, freezing billions of dollars in grants and other funding and proposing to end its tax-exempt status, prompting a series of legal challenges.

Harvard has filed two separate lawsuits before Judge Burroughs seeking to unfreeze US$2.5 billion in funding and to prevent Trump’s administration from blocking the ability of international students to attend the university.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on May 22 announced that her department was immediately revoking Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Programme certification, the governmental mechanism that allows it to enroll foreign students.

Her action was almost immediately blocked by Judge Burroughs. While the Department of Homeland Security has since shifted to challenging Harvard’s certification through a lengthier administrative process, Judge Burroughs at a May 29 hearing said she planned to issue a "broad" injunction to maintain the status quo.

A week later, though, Trump signed his proclamation, which cited national security concerns to contend that Harvard is "no longer a trustworthy steward of international student and exchange visitor programmes".

The proclamation suspended the entry of foreign nationals to study at Harvard or participate in exchange visitor programs for an initial period of six months and directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider whether to revoke visas of international students already enrolled at Harvard.

Harvard has asked Judge Burroughs, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama, to block Trump's directive.

In court papers, the U.S. Justice Department urged Burroughs not to lump Trump's proclamation in with the judge's consideration of Noem’s actions, as it did not ban existing students and Trump relied on different legal authority for his order.