The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday terminated Harvard’s student visa program, meaning the school cannot enroll foreign students and those currently enrolled must either transfer or lose their legal status. The move came after the school failed to respond to a request from Noem inquiring about the conduct of its foreign students on campus.
In addition to allowing pro-terrorist demonstrators to “harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment,” Harvard also collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party, “including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide,” a DHS statement said.
Speaking to Fox News about the decision, Noem explained some of the universities have even prevented law enforcement officers from coming onto campus to uphold law and order.
“We’re going to continue to do our investigations and make sure that what the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for will be done with integrity in the way that Congress laid out that these programs should work and the opportunities that we have to allow people to come into this country, learn, and to be a part of a country that promotes freedom and liberty and where everybody is equal,” she told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner. “That’s not what Harvard is doing and that’s not what we’re seeing in some of these college campuses.”
When Noem was asked whether DHS could terminate the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification for other schools, the secretary said “absolutely.”
“This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together,” she continued. “Get your act together, because we are coming to make sure that these programs, that you are facilitating an environment where students can learn, where they’re safe, and that they’re not discriminated against based on their race or their religion.
“Anti-Semitism will not be stood for, and any participation with a country or an entity or a terrorist group that hates America and perpetuates this kind of violence—we will stop it and we will not allow that to happen, especially in places where our kids need to grow up and really learn what this country is about, what the world is about, and what it means to promote freedom and liberty,” Noem added.
Harvard called the move unlawful and shortly after DHS's announcement, a district judge ruled the government cannot revoke the legal status of foreign students.
LAWFARE: Judge Jeffrey S. White issued multiple immigration related injunctions against Trump in his first term. He's back with a new one preventing Trump from terminating visas for international students involved in the so-called Palestinian Global Intifada. pic.twitter.com/ai5L0wbfhE
— @amuse (@amuse) May 22, 2025
"Today’s ruling delays justice and seeks to kneecap the president’s constitutionally vested powers under Article II," DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system, and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”