Trump’s New Attack on Harvard Fails Immediately as Judge Blocks It

A federal judge blocked Donald Trump’s administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students.

In a brief filing Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order preventing the Department of Homeland Security from revoking the university’s Student Exchange Visa Program certification.

Harvard had filed a lawsuit earlier Friday seeking the order, following the DHS announcement from the previous day that the university “can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.” International students make up about a quarter of Harvard’s student body.

Harvard, which has long been the target of the Trump administration, slammed the DHS’s “unlawful and unwarranted action” in its Friday lawsuit, calling the move a “blatant violation” of the law.

In a separate ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in California barred the government from changing international students’ legal status until cases challenging previous visa revocations are resolved. He said that the government’s actions had “wreaked havoc not only on the lives of Plaintiffs here but on similarly situated F-1 nonimmigrants across the United States and continues do so.”

The Trump administration sought to bar all international students on F- or J- nonimmigrant visas from enrolling in Harvard for the 2025–2026 academic year, including those already pursuing a degree at the school. In a statement, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Noem claimed that the university had created an unsafe environment by failing to shutter pro-Palestinian speech, and alleged that they’d collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party.

Noem has claimed that Harvard can avoid the ban on future foreign student enrollment by agreeing to dox all of its current foreign students to the Trump administration.

These international students have found themselves in the crosshairs of the government’s simultaneous crackdowns on immigration and free speech, as well as the president’s ongoing vendetta against the Ivy League institution.

This story has been updated.