The government of the United States of America has withdrawn the rights of the University of Harvard to enroll foreign students after accusing the institution of abating pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic protests in the campuses of the highly regarded college.

The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday that Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students is revoked.

Several local sources surveyed by The Oracle Today reported that the administration of President Donald Trump has required the Harvard University to transfer its foreign students to another school.

Over 25 percent of Harvard students are foreign and stay in the United States on study visas and green card. And under the new rules, foreign students that refuse to change to other schools in the United States lose their legal status, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, the department said in a statement.

Noem accused the university of “fostering violence and anti-Semitism; and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.

Harvard called the action illegal, saying that the move amounted to retaliation.

The clampdown on foreign students would mark a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets.

The move comes after Harvard refused to provide information that Noem had previously demanded about some foreign student visa holders who attend the university, the department said.

“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,” Noem said in a statement.

Harvard rejected the allegations and pledged to support foreign students.

“The government’s action is unlawful,” the university said in a statement. “This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”

The university said it was “fully committed” to educating foreign students and was working on producing guidance for affected students.

Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in the 2024-2025 school year, amounting to 27% of its total enrollment, according to university statistics.

In 2022, Chinese nationals made up the biggest population of foreign students with 1,016, university figures show. After that were students from Canada, India, South Korea, the UK, Germany, Australia, Singapore and Japan.

Trump, a Republican, has undertaken an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the U.S. that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies. He has criticized Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.

Trump has frozen some $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, leading the university to sue to restore the funding.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that it was terminating $60 million in federal grants to Harvard because the Ivy League institution failed to address antisemitic harassment and ethnic discrimination on campus.

In a legal complaint filed earlier this month, Harvard said it was committed to combating antisemitism and had taken steps to ensure its campus is safe and welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students. It said the administration’s actions were a threat to academic freedom.

Trump took office in January pledging a wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has tried to revoke student visas and green cards of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Foreign undergraduates at U.S. colleges typically pay full tuition, an important source of revenue for colleges and universities.