Bluesky

The current US dictator, Donald Trump, has decided to hold around 6,800 students hostage in order to settle a score with a university he wasn’t smart enough to get into.

On Thursday, the puppy-murderer cosplaying as the director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, sent a letter to Harvard telling it that DHS had revoked Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), thereby halting its ability to enroll international students under the “F” and “J” visa programs. The move would mean that Harvard’s 6,793 international students would suddenly be “out of status,” and either have to leave the country, enroll in another university, or remain at the university in violation of the terms of their visa—and risk deportation.

In the lead-up to this hostage-taking, Noem had asked the university to turn over a sweeping amount of documentation about its international students, including their literal coursework, to Homeland Security. Noem said the records were necessary because Harvard’s enrollment of international students “has created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students” because of the school’s “failure to condemn antisemitism.” She claimed that the university has created a “pro-Hamas” environment and also accused Harvard of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.” My Harvard College reunion is coming up in a couple of weeks and, let me tell you, I am very excited to see how all my classmates who own entire industries or are CEOs of world banks are going to justify their rapacious capitalism to Xi Jinping when he demands that we account for ourselves.

Noem’s statements are, of course, lies. The current crop of international students at Harvard is drawn from 147 different countries, and none of those countries is called “Hamas.” Over 20 percent of them are from China, and 11 percent are from that well-known antisemitic hotspot… Canada; 80 students are from Israel, one is the crown princess of Belgium. How can every one of these individuals be “pro-Hamas” or create a “hostile learning environment” for everyone else? Collective punishment would be wrong (and a violation of due process) even if the administration weren’t lying.

This move by the Trump administration is so wildly overbroad that even if we understand that Trump is a racist xenophobe, the fact that this will also hurt Trump’s beloved white South Africans at Harvard means there almost has to be another reason for attacking international students in this way.

And, of course, there is. Trump is in a massive funding fight with Harvard. He has tried to halt $2.2 billion in federal grants to the university. But he is probably just now realizing a point I made in my initial post about his unconstitutional attempt to take that money away: Losing $2.2 billion does not represent an existential crisis to the university. Harvard can fund itself—at least in the short term—without it.

Tucked into Noem’s ridiculous justifications for the visa revocation was this line: “The United States government understands that Harvard University relies heavily on foreign student funding from over 10,000 foreign students to build and maintain their substantial endowment.” Noem (and Trump) believe that cutting out international students will hurt Harvard financially.

Noem not only overestimates the number of international students at Harvard; she also overestimates their financial contributions to the university. It is true that at most universities, international students are a huge money grab for the institutions. Most international students are, obviously, not eligible for any of the financial aid programs offered by the federal government. So most international kids are paying full freight to go to an American college.

But that’s not quite as true at Harvard. I know, from personal experience, that Harvard goes out of its way to provide financial aid to international students out of its own endowment, in the form of student loans (that are paid back at the same or better rates than those offered by the federal government). Many international students I’ve met through Harvard have told me that it was actually the cheapest university they could have gone to in the United States because it provided the most generous financial aid package. Harvard College is committed to need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid. What that means is that it accepts students regardless of their ability to pay—and then makes sure those students can afford to matriculate. Without having access to Harvard’s balance sheets, I can’t speak more than anecdotally, but, anecdotally, the idea that Harvard’s finances are going to be significantly hurt should it not be able to enroll international students may not be as true as the Trump administration hopes.

Harvard has already sued the administration over its new rules. The revocation of Harvard’s SEVP status is clearly retaliatory; other universities have not been asked to do what Harvard has been asked to do or had their SEVP status reviewed and revoked under the same rules.

When I sat down to write, I was going to say that a judge will issue a temporary restraining order halting Trump’s lawless act “by the middle of next week.” But my prediction was wrong. US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs issued the TRO this morning, mere hours after Harvard filed its complaint.

Despite the TRO, and the high likelihood that Trump will lose this case whenever it gets a full hearing (including in front of the Supreme Court, I believe), the damage has likely already been done, and not just at Harvard. International students at all American universities know that their status is now something the Trump administration is willing to use as a bargaining chip out of sheer pettiness.

However, I’m not sure that’s a bad lesson for the international community to learn. As I’ve said before, we are a rogue nation living under a fascist authoritarian. We should be treated as such by the international community. I wish world leaders would stop coming here, stop going to the Oval Office, and stop treating Trump like a normal US president. He is not. He is a dangerous lunatic supported by some of the worst people, politicians, and voters this world is able to produce. Trump is an international danger, and he’s just shown he is willing to treat other people’s children as pawns simply to annoy an institution that won’t do his bidding. People should react to him accordingly.

For those of us who are stuck here—those of us who don’t have the means to leave and start a new life somewhere else, or are simply unwilling to cede our country to this racist madman and his totalitarian forces—all I can say is this: Fascists always overplay their hands. Trump exists because too many people (too many white people, specifically) think that he’s always going after somebody else. When enough white folks see that he’s not just going after “illegal” immigrants, and he’s not just going after “legal” brown immigrants, but he’s going after white kids here on a student visa from Canada, more of them will realize that this regime will come for all of us before the end. When enough Black folks see that the only immigrants he wants to import are apartheid cheerleaders from South Africa, more will realize that both parties are not in fact the same.

Trump has already knocked over the weakest and most craven institutions in this country, like the media and the Senate. Now he’s going up against institutions that appear to want to put up a fight, like Harvard and the federal judiciary. Let us hope these institutions can buy the American people enough time for a majority of them to get their heads out of their racist asses and fight back.