A federal judge prevented the administration of President Donald Trump on Monday from implementing his plan to prevent foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.
American district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued an injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from making his latest offer to limit Harvard’s ability to welcome international students in the midst of a growing struggle between the Republican president and the prestigious Ivy League school.
The preliminary injunction extends a temporary ordinance that the judge issued on June 5 which prevented the administration from enforcing a proclamation that Trump signed a day earlier which had cited national security problems to justify why Harvard could no longer be faithful to the reception of international students.
The proclamation prohibited foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard or to participate in visitors’ exchange programs for an initial period of six months, and ordered Marco Rubio Secretary of State to consider whether international student visas already registered in Harvard should be revoked.
Burroughs wrote that “at its root, this case concerns the main constitutional rights which must be safeguarded: freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of expression, each is a pillar of a functional democracy and essential coverage against authoritarianism.”
“Here, the government’s ill-placed efforts to control a renowned academic institution and fail various points of view apparently because they are, in some cases, opposed to the opinions of this administration, threaten these rights,” she wrote.
“To worsen things, the government is trying to get there, at least in part, on the back of international students, with little reflection on the consequences for them or, finally, to our own citizens.”
Nearly 6,800 international students attended Harvard in his last school year, representing around 27% of the student population of the prestigious school in Cambridge, in the Massachusetts.
Trump signed the proclamation after his administration had already frozen billions of dollars in funding from the oldest and richest American university, threatened the exempt status of Harvard tax and launched several surveys on the school.
Trump said on Friday that his administration could announce an agreement with Harvard “over the next week” to resolve the White House campaign against the University, which led a legal battle against the action of the administration.
Harvard alleges that Trump retaliates against him in violation of his rights to freedom of expression under the first amendment of the American Constitution to refuse to remedy the requests of the administration to control governance, the school’s study program and the ideology of his teachers and students.
The university brought two separate proceedings before Burroughs seeks to thaw around 2.5 billion dollars in funding and prevent the administration from blocking the ability of international students to frequent the university.
This last trial was filed after the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced on May 22 that his department immediately revoked the certification of the student program and exchange visitors, which allows him to register foreign students.
Noem, without providing evidence, accused the university of “promoting violence, anti -Semitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.
Its action was temporarily blocked by Burroughs almost immediately. While the Ministry of Internal Security has since passed Harvard’s certification during an administrative process of several months, Burroughs at a hearing of May 29 said that it had planned to issue an injunction to maintain the status quo, which it officially did on Friday.
A week after the hearing, Trump signed his proclamation, which cited concerns about Harvard acceptance of foreign money, including China and what he said, an inadequate response from the school at the request of information from his administration on foreign students.
His administration accused Harvard of having created a dangerous environment for Jewish students and of allowing anti -Semitism to be transmitted to his campus. The demonstrations against the United States Ally Israel of the Palestinians during his war in Gaza sparked campuses of many universities, including Harvard.
Defenders of rights noted the increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the United States due to the war. The Trump administration has so far announced any action on anti-arab and anti-Muslim hatred. Harvard’s own working groups and Harvard Islamophobia found generalized fear and fanaticism at the University of reports published in late April.
