International Students Are Under Threat. Harvard Must Be Ready.

Freezing federal funds. Demolishing diversity initiatives. Next on President Donald Trump’s warpath against higher education? Surveilling international students.

After doubling back on threats to revoke visas from foreign students breaking laws while participating in pro-Palestine activism, Trump signed an executive order last week — purportedly to combat antisemitism — requiring universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students.”

For international students, the specter of deportation is nothing new. Breaking the law has long carried the danger of removal. But this order isn’t about preventing crime or cracking down on antisemitism — it’s another front in Trump’s larger assault on students, immigrants, and free expression.

International students represent a mere 5.6 percent of the United States college population, and presumably a tiny fraction of student protesters as well. That they are the prime targets of the order — one that apparently tars pro-Palestine protests as “pro-jihadist” in an accompanying fact sheet — indicates that the administration is using the controversy over Israel-Palestine as a pretext to stoke xenophobic fear.

Indeed, this order aligns seamlessly with the hardline anti-immigrant agenda laid out in Project 2025, a plan many understand as the policy blueprint for the next four years of Trump governance.

As Trump sets his sights on our international peers, it’s worth reiterating that they are valued members of our community. And — like any other students — they deserve the right to protest here without fear of deportation. Last we checked, the First Amendment doesn’t exclude international students.

So as long as our peers are caught in the crossfire of the culture war, our University had better have their backs. Rather than default to quiet acquiescence, Harvard must proactively take every lawful step to defend the rights of its students.

Of course, the University should comport its behavior with the law. But when faced with a choice between preemptive compliance and actions better suited to defending students, Harvard should err on the side of the latter.

After all, one clear lesson of the first few weeks of the Trump administration is that policy is hardly set in stone. The recent freeze — and subsequent release — of Harvard’s federal funding suggests that executive action taken over the course of the next four years may be more symbol than substance. As such, our University shouldn’t be too quick to dutifully submit to those policies that threaten members of our community — and might not hold up to legal scrutiny.

Beyond strategic compliance, though, Harvard can and should take steps to lobby against rhetoric and policies that threaten some of its most vulnerable students.

International students are indispensable members of our community. Over the course of the next four years, Harvard must act like it.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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