Judge blocks Trump’s efforts to limit foreign students on Harvard

Harvard University won a postponement in its fight to register international students, after the Trump administration seemed to return the first decertification and a federal court maintained a block on the order of the government.

The Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday that Harvard University would now give 30 days to prove that it meets the requirements of the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which authorizes universities to organize academics on Visa.

A letter from DHS Secretary Kristi Name noted that the office “Intention to withdraws” should have certification Harvard on campus.

“Not responding to this notification within the assigned time will result in the withdrawal of your school’s certification,” she wrote.

An earlier notification of 22 May has withdrawn the certification of Harvard at SEVP, which encouraged a rapid lawsuit of the university and an equally fast limited order of a judge.

The American district judge Allison Burroughs indicated on Thursday that she would later publish a longer term, known as a provisional order that would be while the case would play in court. This development would enable international students and teachers to continue to study at Harvard during the current lawsuits.

The legal battle is closely monitored by other American universities and the thousands of foreigners who study at Harvard and throughout the country.

There are two main questions in Harvard’s lawsuit, lawyers say.

Do the government’s reasons to focus on the participation of Harvard to the Visa program student according to the law?

And are those reasons legitimate, or just a pretext for punishing Harvard for constitutionally protected speech that the administration does not like?

Although legal experts agree that the Trump administration could lose as courts find it for ideological reasons, the government has taken steps that can help rule it – with broader, thorny implications.

Covering about the confrontation is a greater question: can the US government dictate what universities can teach, who they can hire and who can register?

“This could be the kind of thing that could flow to the first circuit to the US Supreme Court on a rapid track basis from the court,” said Aram Gavoor, an associated dean at George Washington University Law School and a former lawyer of the Ministry of Justice.

The academic visa of America on which international students, researchers and faculty trust in the US is controlled by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) Agency, a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security.

To participate, universities must receive certification from DHS through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). Last week the government withdrew the SEVP certification of Harvard and explodes its ability to organize international students and researchers.

“As far as DHS is concerned, it is quite strong. It is a certification agency for this program and there is various bases on which decertification can take place,” Gavoor said. Courts are usually also respectful for the agency.

“However, there are certain limits,” he said.

The first amendment of the American Constitution, which guarantees free speech for individuals and companies and entities such as Harvard, is a powerful protection – and one that Harvard has always called in his lawsuit.

If judges determine the basis of DHS for the withdrawal of Harvard’s certification from ideological differences and violates the free disagreement of the university, the court could rule against the government.

“A lot will be called in or the courts conclude whether the first amendment is involved here,” said Mr. Gavoor.

References to the alleged ideological tendency of Harvard appear in the letters and statements from the Trump government – possibly problematic for the White House in court, say legal experts.

A letter of 11 April ordered the university to make significant changes to its activities, including bringing in a third party “to control the student body, the faculty, staff and leadership for diversity of the point of view.”

President Trump attacked Harvard on the Truth Social because “almost all hiring woke up, radically left, idiots and” bird brains “”. A separate message called on the university to lose its tax -free status “If it keeps pushing, pushing the pushing of political, ideological and terrorists inspired/supporting” disease “”.

In her first 22 May letter to Harvard about the eligible of student visa, the Minister of Interior Security said Kristi Nemard that Harvard “was hostile to Jewish students, Pro-Hamas sympathies and employs racist diversity, fairness and inclusion policy”.

Harvard claims that the actions of the Trump government are not about combating anti -Semitism or keeping Americans safe.

The withdrawal of visa certification is “the new law of the government in clear retribution for Harvard that exercises its first amendment rights to control the government’s government, the Curriculum of Harvard and the” ideology “of its faculty and students,” says the school, “the government also claims that the government claims that the government also claims that the government claims that the government also claims that the government claims. ignored to take action against it.

“The administration makes it clear that they are going after Harvard because of points of view that it attributes to Harvard students and faculties and the institution itself,” says Will Creeley, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Legal Director.

“The smoking gun is indeed very smoky, it’s outside,” he said.

Harvard has to meet the federal non-discrimination laws that hinder prejudices on the basis of race, gender, national origin or other protected classes, but that does not mean that the federal government can dictate acceptable pedagogy in Harvard’s classrooms, “he said.

Decades of legal precedent and a critical decision from the US Supreme Court of 1957 underlie this concept, Mr Creeley said.

Despite Harvard’s argument, nuances can make the case more difficult.

The US screened historical potential international students at views that it considers unsafe, including alleged supports of terror or totalitarian regimes. In the past, communist tendencies were used to ban foreign academics from the US. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against Jewish students.

The letter from Secretary in Harvard in 22 can evoke these concepts to justify the tractortification, which means that it could “read in a way where all that behavior is potentially illegal” on the part of the university, Mr Gavoor said.

“The government could win here,” he said.

Even if a judge prohibits visa policy, Trump may have already won by chilling international registration, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an immigration lawyer that represents Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a controversial deportation case.

“It is similar to self -declaration. They want people to self -unity,” he said.

In the White House on Wednesday, President Trump drove the idea of ​​closing international students to 15% of Harvard’s student body.

“We (who) wanted to go to Harvard and other schools,” he said. “They can’t come in because we have foreign students there.”