Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

> student records that can be used to determine if a student visa holder has violated their visa

What do they need from Harvard to determine if an individual has violated their visa? Does the administration not have a list of students on a visa? (Surely they do, given that's their job.) Do they not have evidence of a crime? (Surely they do, otherwise there's no problem. But also apparently not, because they'd just use that.) What's missing?

By the time LLMs are routinely writing, or even proof-reading, the majority of Hacker News comments, it's already game over for the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory

Why do you need a real suppressor to cosplay a pretend political stance? If you haven't already gotten the right size oil filter, just go buy a spray painted soda can from that guy at the flea market that sells decorative airplanes made from soda cans. Heck of a lot lighter, too.

The authoritarian jackboots are here today, destroying individual liberties (and the economy to really put the nails in the coffin), and yet it's basically crickets from the otherwise-loud 2A fundamentalists - just like how the first round of Dear Leader had them dropping "from my cold, dead hands" and replacing it with "blue lives matter".

The Trump administration is a loyalty-based hierarchy. The intelligent advisors know that it is better for there careers do demonstrate loyalty than actual do anything to improve his policies. This is not rationalists paradigm, it’s a survivalist paradigm.

In fact the reason why it’s so bad now is that he blames his (more intelligent) advisers in his previous administration for his problems.

The best source I've seen for understanding the underlying power dynamics at play is the DHS's Press Release: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/22/harvard-university-loses...

Here's the beginning:

WASHINGTON – Today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered DHS to terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.

This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.

Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students. Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide.

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Secretary Noem. “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. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

On April 16, 2025, Secretary Noem demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus. Secretary Noem warned refusal to comply with this lawful order would result in SEVP termination.

This action comes after DHS terminated $2.7 million in DHS grants for Harvard last month.

Harvard University brazenly refused to provide the required information requested and ignored a follow up request from the Department’s Office of General Council. Secretary Noem is following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the U.S. government.

I think a fair answer might be that this immediate action is primarily about Israel, and Harvard's toleration and apparent support of organizations that the US government considers to be terrorists. Harvard has quite consciously taken an antagonistic approach here, and the government feels it is responding in kind.

Secondarily, it's about the way that elite schools have aligned themselves with the progressive politics associated with the Democratic party. Harvard is the target here because they are strongest, not necessarily because they are the most liberal. If the government can humble Harvard, they expect that all the weaker institutions will fold without a fight.