The U.S. government may not, for the time being, implement President Donald Trump’s order to bar foreign students from Harvard University. The judge suspended that decision pending a lawsuit Harvard filed against the government.
Trump announced Wednesday that new foreign students for the prestigious university would not receive visas for at least the next six months.
The United States also denied exchange students wishing to come to Harvard access to the country. In addition, Trump called on his State Department to review existing visas of current foreign Harvard students and consider revoking them.
The judge has now ruled that the decision must be postponed, reports news agency Reuters. The reason is that the measure could cause “immediate and irreparable harm.” Therefore, all parties must first be given the opportunity to speak out in the case. The decision has been postponed until a hearing on June 16.
According to the government, the university is guilty of “promoting violence and anti-Semitism on campus, and conspiring with the Chinese Communist Party.” The government provided no evidence for these accusations. Harvard must provide evidence to the contrary itself, according to the government.
‘We will continue to protect our international students’
Harvard previously called Trump’s visa measure a reprisal, presumably for earlier legal action the university took against the government. According to the university, it is a violation of the constitutional right to challenge government policy. “We will continue to protect our international students,” says the 389-year-old university.
Approximately 7,000 people from outside the U.S. are affiliated with Harvard. Among them are nearly 6,800 students, about a quarter of the total student population. “Without international students, Harvard is no longer Harvard,” the university previously stated.