Judge blocks Donald Trump’s ban on foreign Harvard students entering US
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A judge has temporarily blocked the White House’s latest effort to ban Harvard’s international students, hours after the school filed a legal complaint.
US district judge Allison Burroughs said the university had proved it would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” if Donald Trump’s proclamation banning the entry of Harvard’s foreign students into the US were allowed to go into effect while the case proceeded.
The university on Thursday night argued in an amended lawsuit that Trump’s proclamation, which cited national security concerns, was a violation of the First Amendment.
Trump on Wednesday had invoked a law that allowed him to block a “class of aliens” that would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States”.
Harvard argued in its suit the law did not apply in this case.
The amended lawsuit said Trump’s proclamation meant international students may enter the country “as long as they do not attend Harvard”, which contradicts the president’s claims of protecting the “interests of the United States” because it singles out the university.
The school claimed Trump’s move was retaliation for Harvard resisting his administration’s demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and what it called “the ideology of faculty and students”.
Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, said: “Singling out our institution for its enrolment of international students and its collaboration with other educational institutions around the world is yet another illegal step taken by the administration to retaliate against Harvard.”
The latest action follows Harvard’s push to block the White House’s policy cancelling its right to host foreign students.
Garber said: “Contingency plans are being developed to ensure that international students and scholars can continue to pursue their work at Harvard this summer and through the coming academic year.”
More than 27 per cent of Harvard’s students are international.
The government has said it is suspending interviews for all international student visa applicants to the US while it prepares new guidance including examining their social media feeds.
Trump has cancelled about $3bn in government funding to Harvard, threatened to remove its tax exempt status and probed alleged civil rights violations and foreign donations.
