Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has terminated Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. 

In a May 22 letter to Maureen Martin, the school’s director of immigration services, Noem revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students and stated that existing foreign students must transfer or risk losing their legal status. 

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” she said in a press release. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland, California blocked the termination on Thursday afternoon, AP News reports. White stated that the Trump administration’s actions wreaked havoc on visa-holding foreign students in the U.S. 

“It is unclear how this game of whack-a-mole will end unless Defendants are enjoined from skirting their own mandatory regulations,” White said.

Last month, Harvard did not comply with Noem’s request to provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus. The DHS secretary warned that failure to do so would result in SEVP termination. Noem subsequently canceled $2.7 million in DHS grants to the university.

“Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused,” she added in a Thursday X post. “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

In her letter, Noem said the school can regain SEVP certification if it provides the following information involving foreign students within 72 hours: all records of illegal, dangerous or violent activity exhibited on or off campus; records of threats made by foreign students to classmates or faculty; disciplinary records; and audio and video footage of any protest activity.

All records requested must cover the past five years. 

If the university fails to comply, about 6,800 foreign students — roughly a quarter of the student body — would be impacted. 

Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton called the revocation “unlawful.” 

“We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University—and this nation—immeasurably,” he said. “We are working quickly to provide guidance and support to members of our community. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”

DHS described “Harvard’s toxic campus climate” at length, including race discrimination, antisemitic harassment, and “Pro-Hamas student groups … that remained recognized and funded” after the Oct. 7 attack in Israel. The department also cited data from Harvard University Police Department indicating that crime rates increased by 55 percent between 2022 and 2023. 

“Instead of protecting its students, Harvard has let crime rates skyrocket, enacted racist DEI practices, and accepted boatloads of cash from foreign governments and donors,” said DHS.

Late last month, the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias released a report that uncovered “politicized instruction that mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.”

An example cited in the document includes of an illustration labeled the “Pyramid of White Supremacy.” 

The graphic, which was distributed to students in the Graduate School of Education, illustrates a spectrum of overt, coded, and covert forms of white supremacy on one side, and a spectrum ranging from genocide to normalization on the other. 

Covert forms of white supremacy include calling the police on Black people, tolerance, deportation, “English Only,” Columbus Day, and holding an “Anti-Kaepernick” view.