Canadian Harvard students grapple with Trump's attempt to bar foreign students

Meghana Sanagaram was celebrating her grades for the springtime semester of her graduate programme at john harvard University on midweek.

By th, she was no longer sure about the future of her degree at all.

The Trump administration dealt a major blow Thursday by announcing it was revoking Harvard University's ability to enrol international students like Sanagaram.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate the Harvard University's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective for the 2025-26 school year, the department said in a statement. It's also forcing existing students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status.

The move also strips the university of its authority to sponsor F- and J- visas for international students and scholars for the 2025-26 academic year, Harvard noted in an online statement.

The move was a response to Harvard's refusal to provide information it sought about foreign student visa holders and could be reversed if the university relents, the Trump administration has said. Harvard is suing, calling the revocation a "blatant violation" of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and other federal laws in a complaint filed in Boston federal court Friday.

Later on Friday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order freezing the policy. But the Trump administration can appeal the ruling.

And for now, confusion abounds over what this means for the thousands of international students — including Canadians — enrolled at the prestigious Ivy League school in Cambridge, Mass.

Sanagaram says Thursday's announcement from the Trump administration feels misguided and unsettling given that international students are in the U.S. Legally, contribute significantly to the U.S. Economy, and "add immense value to academic institutions."

"[It] felt like a political warpath with little regard for what that meant to thousands of students, their dreams, their investment, and in many cases, years of life's work," she said.

Harvard enrols almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.

The largest share, 1,390 students, come from China, according to Harvard's enrolment factbook. But Canada isn't far behind, in second place with 751 students enrolled in 2024. And when it comes to undergraduates alone, the largest proportion of international students come from Canada by far.

The largest share of students (176) were enrolled at Harvard College for an undergraduate degree, followed by 139 enrolled in the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and 132 students enrolled in extension programs for adult learners.

The rest were spread between Harvard's various professional programs, such as its business, medical, public health and law schools.

Many world leaders and their children have attended or are attending the Ivy League school, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. His daughter is also reportedly a current student.

While we don't know how many new students accepted for studies in 2025 could be affected, last year, 18 per cent of new admissions into the undergraduate program were international students.

And by now, many of those Grade 12 students who received admission letters have already accepted and started making plans, said Connor Bitter, who graduated from Harvard in 2018 and now works as an education consultant to help other students apply to elite international universities.

Many of the students he works with come from families who have put a significant investment into the education of their children, Bitter said. And the students have made a significant time investment themselves, working toward the goal of getting into Harvard for years.

Even just applying is a "full-time job investment" in the fall, he added. And now, to find out that door has potentially closed?

"It is the most devastating news that a Grade 12 who has worked their entire life to get into Harvard can receive."

Canadian Harvard student says he's not sure how to re-enter U.S.

Marco Avina, a PhD candidate at Harvard, says his immediate concern is how he's getting back into the U.S. At all. Avina, who is from Montreal, has been in Croatia for the past two weeks on vacation and plans to re-enter through JFK airport on June 1.

Typically he would enter the United States as a J-1 research scholar, Avina said, but now he's not sure what to do.

"I don't know if my apartment that I have in Cambridge, if I will have to vacate that and go back to Montreal or if I can expect to have an accommodation in Cambridge for the long term," he said in a Zoom interview.

Avina says he's lucky that at least his work won't be lost, as he can work on his research remotely.

"But ... There are people who are tied to Harvard in, in more concrete ways than I am. And those people are very much in trouble right now."

In a statement posted online Friday, Harvard president Alan Garber said Trump's action "imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfil their dreams."

Harvard will continue to support its international students as it fights the decision, Garber added. 

Trump administration blocks Harvard from enrolling foreign students

Senior Writer & Editor

---

---