Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling international students
VENN
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- The Trump administration has blocked Harvard University from enrolling international students under the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP).
The decision removes Harvard’s ability to allow noncitizens to study under their Student and Exchange Visitor Program, SEVP.
"The phenomenon that has been seen across the United States is that many students woke up and they were revoked from the program,” said immigration attorney Soulmaz Taghavi, of Taghavi Immigration Law Firm.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday that "Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment." It further claimed that "many of these agitators are foreign students."
Many pro-Palestinian student protests have taken place over the past year. This includes local activism at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
"Immigrants are allowed to go out and be part of organizations to protest peacefully, to have opinions and discussions around really anything as long as it's not inciting violence," Taghavi said.
In April, two VCU students and one alum had their visas temporarily revoked after participating in repeated demonstrations and rallies. They were reinstated following multiple lawsuits.
"The consensus is that they're using things like threat to security, if people are involved in certain protests, or they're out there [as] part of certain organizations that the government will deem as being in violation of the First Amendment,” Taghavi said.
The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that "it’s a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students,” and added that Harvard had “plenty of opportunity to do the right thing.”
