Harvard international students react to Trump’s order to bar them

After the Trump administration retaliated against Harvard University by barring international students from enrolling in the fall, some of those students said it’s a waiting game, but called on Harvard to do more to protect them.

“A lot of us are just very scared,” Andrea Parra, a PhD student, told Boston.com. “There has been very little transparency on what protections the university is willing to commit to. It’s just been all very uncertain, and it’s left us all with our lives a bit upended.”

President Donald Trump’s administration moved on May 22 to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, alleging that the university “promotes pro-Hamas sympathies” and uses “racist” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X that Harvard coordinates with the Chinese Communist Party “on its campus.”

The following day, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s move, which could affect 7,000 visa holders at the university, Harvard said in its filed lawsuit.  

The dispute came from Harvard refusing to turn over information about foreign students, among other demands, which put $2.2 billion in federal research grants at stake.

More than 27 percent of Harvard University’s student body are international students, according to admission data, or 6,793 people. More than 1,000 are from China, more than 600 from Canada, and hundreds from South Korea and India, according to Harvard.

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” Harvard said in its lawsuit, the Associated Press reported. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

Harvard didn’t reply to a request for comment on Monday.

Students: ‘Not necessarily a surprise,’ ‘scapegoated and targeted’

Parra, who is originally from Colombia, began at Harvard last September to study epidemiology with a focus in infectious diseases. She previously earned her undergraduate degree at another American university.

“It’s definitely an escalation, but it was not necessarily a surprise,” Parra, who is involved with the Harvard Graduate Students Union, said about the move.

Nearly 4,000 student workers in four unions at Harvard are affected, “which makes it one of the single largest concentrated deportation threats to a unionized workforce in the history of the United States,” she said.

Sudipta Saha, a citizen of Bangladesh and Canada, said he was “shocked” to hear the news and handled some immediate fallout from the announcement. As a union organizer, Saha said many Harvard students who were traveling on Thursday and Friday were concerned about reentering the country.

“We were eventually able to get stories from people who were able to successfully enter that our status was still valid, but we also heard a lot of stories of Harvard students specifically being taken into secondary screening at Logan, so that was pretty concerning,” Saha said.

Saha, a fourth year PhD student in population health sciences, said the university hasn’t been communicative with international students since the initial demand letter from DHS.

“International students like myself are being scapegoated and targeted,” Saha said. “The university needs to do more, honestly, to provide protections for us, including legal supports if needed.”

Harvard, like many other colleges in greater Boston and around the country, saw pro-Palestine student encampments last spring. At Harvard, students camping on Harvard Yard were specifically protesting the college’s suspension of a pro-Palestine student group and fighting for divestment from Israel.

Since Trump took office, his administration has taken aim at many universities, particularly Harvard and Columbia University in New York City, for their response to the protests, claiming Jewish students were unsafe on campus.

Noga Marmor, an Israeli graduate student studying history who is Jewish, said antisemitism is being “weaponized” to attack universities, democracy, and free speech.

“The idea that these measures are meant to protect Jewish or Israeli students is absurd,” Marmor said in an email to Boston.com. “I myself participated in protests against the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza. How dare they call me a terrorist for protesting the actions of my own country’s government?”

Parra said the “bare minimum” is for Harvard to protect international students’ records. But, she said, the university could improve emergency funds for foreign students and increase transparency for students.

“It can also commit to maintaining students’ enrollment and worker status,” Parra said. “There’s a lot that the university can be doing.”

Saha noted that, with the start of summer, many students are trying “get more information as this lawsuit progresses.”

“People are just waiting to see what happens,” Saha said, “and just generally frustrated with the lack of clarity, both because this is pretty unprecedented, and also because the university hasn’t communicated too much with international students.”

Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.