Harvard files legal challenge against Trump's efforts to block visas for foreign students

Harvard University filed a legal challenge Thursday night against efforts by US President Donald Trump to block visas for foreign students planning to attend the prestigious academic institution. "Singling out our institution for its enrollment of international students and its collaboration with other educational institutions around the world is yet another illegal step taken by the Administration to retaliate against Harvard," Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter.

On Wednesday, the Republican leader issued a proclamation to officially deny visas to foreign students wishing to enter the country to study at the university, marking his latest attack on Harvard. That move came after the Trump administration attempted to limit the university's ability to enroll foreign students by revoking its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. That move, taken in late May, was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

Harvard assured that Trump only seeks to materialize a "vendetta."

In his letter, Garber explained that the university amended a federal lawsuit and detailed that Harvard will seek to have a court "immediately halt the enforcement of the proclamation," adding that both he and the academic institution expect the court to act quickly. Likewise, the university asserted in its amended complaint that both the order signed Wednesday by Trump and the previous attempt by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to revoke its ability to enroll students represent a clear violation of its First Amendment rights.

"Each is part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard’s exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students. The government’s actions, moreover, have no basis in law," the amended complaint states.

Furthermore, the amended complaint argues that the immigration law cited in Trump's proclamation allows the Republican president to ban "a class of aliens whose entry would be 'detrimental to the interests of the United States,'" adding that Trump's actions are not taken to protect the "interests of the United States," but to pursue a "government vendetta against Harvard."