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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- General
- Irish Times
Trump v Harvard: University faces existential battle against an opponent that would have been unimaginable a few years ago
In a plummier era for sports writing – and for Harvard University , and for the United States of America – the renaissance man George Plimpton brought his nine-year-old daughter to see his alma mater play the annual football game against its nemesis, Yale. It was close to Christmas, 1981, and afterwards Plimpton banged out an eccentric, gorgeous (and plummy) piece for Sports Illustrated titled Medora Goes To The Game which was chosen as part of The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. It captured a place in time. Or, rather, out of time. Plimpton's mission was to try to impress his daughter with a tour through the fabled campus, where he spoke to her about everything from how 'the Boylston professor of Rhetoric was, by tradition, allowed to graze a cow in the yard' to how six former presidents attended there, to the year when a pigeon, perched on the goal line, caused pandemonium and a temporary suspension of the Harvard-Yale enmity. This week, Harvard finds itself confronting the most serious enmity in its four-century existence. On Thursday, its 374th annual commencement ceremony took place against the backdrop of what is an existential battle against an opponent that would have been unimaginable a few years ago: the White House . READ MORE It was during the speeches in the Tercentenary Theatre that news came through that a Boston judge had temporarily blocked the department of homeland security from preventing international enrolment to the university after Harvard's legal team sought an order arguing that: 'With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard's student body, international students who contribute significantly to the university and its mission. Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.' A brief applause broke out. It was a small victory. But will a 'temporary' injunction make much difference? Can elite students from across the globe commit to a campus from which they may be ejected, by the government, at any time? Without the financial input of international students. Harvard's famous $50 billion endowment will quickly shrink. A year ago, Harvard president Alan Garber was booed at the commencement ceremony after the decision was made to delay the degrees of 13 students involved in a pro-Palestine protest by a year. This week, he was roundly applauded for not buckling to the pressures and demands of the Trump administration . Meanwhile, an internal reckoning is going on concerning the charges levelled against it by the administration, including anti-Semitism running rife on campus and of extreme wokeness. In a long editorial, the Harvard Crimson examined attempts to placate the government, settling two anti-Semitism lawsuits, suspending programmes pertaining to Palestine in three academic departments and placing the Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation. 'As its lawsuits prepare to be litigated in court, Harvard faces a monumental task in standing up to a hostile government as the guardian of higher education,' the editorial argued. [ Donald Trump lashes out at Harvard and says he could cut $3bn in funds Opens in new window ] 'It cannot defeat the Trump agenda by mirroring its logic.' Stev en Pinker , one of its more celebrated faculty members, wrote a New York Times essay recalling recent incidents of wokeness – the forced resignation of biologist Carole Hooven for stating that a person's sex is biological and binary; the dismissal of legal scholar Ronald Sullivan as the dean of a residential house 'when his legal representation of Harvey Weinstein made students feel 'unsafe''. 'For what it's worth, I have experienced no antisemitism in my two decades at Harvard, and nor have other prominent Jewish faculty members,' Pinker wrote. 'My own discomfort instead is captured in a Crimson essay by the Harvard senior Jacob Miller, who called the claim that one in four Jewish students feels 'physically unsafe' on campus 'an absurd statistic I struggle to take seriously as someone who publicly and proudly wears a kippah around campus each day'.' But Garber has acknowledged a problem with anti-Semitism in Harvard. And the tales of wokeism are grist to the Maga mill. 'Harvard wants to fight: they want to show how smart they are,' president Trump said recently. 'They're getting their ass kicked.' [ 'Harvard people' squaring up for battle royale with White House over politics, power and privilege Opens in new window ] At the very least, they are in a ferocious scrap – and show every sign of being up for it. Towards the end of his essay, Plimpton wanders into his daughter's room while she is out and discovers that she is in the midst of compiling a newspaper of family stories as a Christmas gift, including a brief report on the football game they had attended together. The closing lines read: 'A small story caught my eye on the last page of the paper. The headline read, HARVARD NOT DISCORAGED. The story underneath, in its entirety, read: 'Harvard is not discoraged.''
Washington Post
11 hours ago
- General
- Washington Post
Trump's list of 'sanctuary jurisdictions' includes some that support his immigration policies
MADISON, Wis. — Officials in communities from rural to urban and red to blue blasted the Trump administration's list of 'sanctuary jurisdictions' with many saying they've been outspoken supporters of the president and his stringent immigration policies. Officials who back President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown questioned how their jurisdictions wound up on a list of more than 500 that the Department of Homeland Security says are obstructing enforcement. Several communities were misspelled, including Cincinnati, which was spelled Cincinnatti. Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, said the inclusion of his heavily Republican community must be a clerical error. 'We have no idea how we got on this list whatsoever right at this point,' Davel said. 'I think it was just a big mix up, probably some paperwork or something.' Meanwhile, those with policies protecting immigrants also pushed back, saying they are doing right by their communities. 'This is simply the latest attempt by the Trump administration to strong-arm cities like Seattle into changing our local policies through bluster and threats to critical federal funding for public safety and homelessness,' Bruce Harrell, the city's mayor, told The Associated Press in an email. 'It's not going to work — the law is on our side — and we will not hesitate to protect our people and stand up for our values.' The list was published as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to follow through on the president's campaign promises to remove millions of people who are in the country illegally. It came out as Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced major leadership changes, and after a White House official said the administration wanted to drive daily immigration arrests significantly higher. The administration says each jurisdiction on the list will receive formal notification that the government has deemed them noncompliant and if they're believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes. The list was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement or had any legal protections for people in the country illegally, according to Homeland Security. But communities said the list doesn't appear to make sense. In California's Orange County, the city of Huntington Beach is on the list even though it has sued the state over its policies that protect immigrants and its City Council supports Trump. But the nearby city of Santa Ana, which has policies to protect members of its sizable immigrant community, is not. In North Dakota, seven mostly small, rural counties wound up on the list, including Slope County, which has about 700 people and overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2024. County officials reached out to Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong's office to see what steps to take next, and plan to discuss the matter next week with the county state's attorney, County Commission Chairman Scott Ouradnik said. Communities supportive of immigrants said their policies aren't just about immigrants but all residents by ensuring anyone who is a victim or witness feels they can come forward and report crime. States including California, Illinois and Washington, which have such policies, are on the list. In Hartford, Connecticut, Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said the capital city's laws and policies have enhanced the vibrancy and safety of the community. The city bars people's immigration status from being used to deny city services and police can't arrest people solely because of immigration status. 'While my administration remains laser-focused on real solutions that protect our community, it is clear that current federal policies do not share this commitment to safety and threaten to undermine the gains we have made,' Arulampalam said in a statement. Nithya Nathan-Pineau, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said it's unclear what criteria were used to formulate the list or define the concept of sanctuary nor what legal action the government plans to take against the jurisdictions. 'It seems quite arbitrary because not all of these states or specific jurisdictions have a policy that limits cooperation with ICE,' Nathan-Pineau said. 'It's pretty clear that this is another attempt to intimidate and bully.' There's no clear definition of what a sanctuary jurisdiction is, but the term generally applies to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It originated in the 1980s with U.S. churches that housed Central Americans who fled civil wars. Last month, Trump signed an executive order requiring the secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general to publish a list of states and local jurisdictions that they considered to be obstructing federal immigration laws. The list is to be regularly updated. Federal departments and agencies, working with the Office of Management and Budget, would then be tasked with identifying federal grants or contracts with those states or local jurisdictions that the federal government identified as 'sanctuary jurisdictions' and suspending or terminating the money, according to the executive order. ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, enforces immigration laws nationwide. The agency often seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding them until those authorities are able to take custody. ___ Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California, and Bellisle from Seattle. Associated Press writers Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, David Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, Gisela Salomon in Miami and John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, contributed.
The Guardian
14 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘My stomach just dropped': foreign students in panicked limbo as Trump cancels visa interviews
Students around the world who were gearing up to study in the United States this fall face growing uncertainty after the Trump administration temporarily halted student visa appointments this week. On Tuesday, a state department directive ordered US embassies globally to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students while it prepares to implement expanded social media screening for all international visa applicants. While interview appointments that were already scheduled can proceed, the announcement sparked panic among students who have yet to secure interviews. Students who spoke with the Guardian expressed anxiety over delays in visa processing that could jeopardize scholarships, on-campus housing, their ability to start classes on time – and their very academic futures. 'My stomach just dropped,' said Oliver Cropley, 27, a student at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, who is meant to attend the University of Kansas beginning this August for a year abroad. The directive came amid a series of recent policy shifts targeting international students at US universities. This week, the Trump administration issued new measures targeting Chinese students, announcing it would focus on the visas of those studying in 'critical fields' and of students with ties to the Chinese Communist party, and implement heightened scrutiny for all future applicants from China and Hong Kong. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security said it would immediately ban Harvard University from enrolling international students, forcing the university's international student body to either transfer or leave the country. A federal judge blocked that effort on Thursday, but its long-term outcome remains uncertain. The changes have left many international students who are planning to come to the US for the 2025-2026 academic year scrambling and in limbo. Cropley said that he paid all of the application fees for the US visa including the last administrative fee last week to schedule his visa interview, but he has been unable to schedule it or reach anyone at the US embassy. 'I was looking forward to Kansas. I love America, the wildlife, the culture,' Cropley said 'It has demoralized me,' Cropley said. 'It's a stressful enough process, and then to get this sort of knockback at this stage … I'm supposed to be there on August 4.' The scholarship he received to go study in the US is also now in flux, he said, as it is contingent on him traveling. As he awaits updates from the US embassy, Cropley said he is exploring his options – inquiring about the possibility of re-enrolling at his home university in the UK and completing the year there instead of in the US. But he said 'it's quite late' to be picking classes and modules and finding accommodation. 'I'm sort of stuck in between the two different universities with no guarantee of getting into either,' Cropley said. 'Essentially, it's just a waiting game.' Another UK student, who has been accepted to Harvard for the fall, told the Guardian that they were in 'disbelief' over the administration's attempt to block Harvard from enrolling international students. 'In your head, you have the next kind of five years knowing where you'll be, and then suddenly, overnight, that changes,' they said, speaking anonymously out of fear their comments could affect their visa approval The student said that their visa interview was already scheduled when the directive was issued, so they hope their interview is still going ahead. The recent decisions by the Trump administration 'raise a lot of uncertainty for the future', they said, adding that the situation at Harvard feels 'very fragile'. 'We may still be able to go, but at any moment, that could change,' they said. 'And if you're going to this place, to do work, but your mind is consumed with a fear of how grounded you can be, will things change, that's also difficult to deal with.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion They said that if they get their visa, they still plan on enrolling at Harvard. The Guardian last week invited scholars in the US and students poised to study in the US to share their experiences navigating the Trump administration's recent actions targeting higher education. More than 100 people responded, many saying they were reconsidering their academic future in the country. Several international students who wrote in declined follow-up interviews with the Guardian, citing fear of repercussions. Alfred Williamson, a Harvard undergraduate from Wales in Denmark for the summer, told Reuters this week that he fears he may not be able to return to the US. 'We're being used like pawns in the game that we have no control of,' he said. 'We're being caught in this crossfire between the White House and Harvard, and it feels incredibly dehumanising.' Some universities have advised students who are already enrolled not to leave the US for the summer in case they won't be allowed back. There are currently more than 1.1 million international students in the US, comprising about 6% of the US higher education population, according to the Institute of International Education. They typically pay two to three times the tuition of domestic students, and for the 2023-2024 academic year international students contributed $43.8bn to the US economy, according to Nafsa. In a court filing on Wednesday as part of a Harvard lawsuit against the Trump administration's efforts to ban international students at the school, Maureen Martin, Harvard's director of immigration services, described 'profound fear, concern, and confusion' among students and faculty as a result of the action. Faculty and administrators, she said, have been 'inundated' with inquiries from current international students about their status and options, and several foreign consulates in the US have contacted the university seeking clarity on how the policy affects their nationals who are enrolled. Martin said that many international students are experiencing 'significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies'. Some, she said, are avoiding graduation ceremonies for fear of immigration action, while others have canceled travel plans due to concerns they might not be allowed back into the US. 'Too many international students to count' have inquired about the possibility of transferring to another institution, she said. Martin said that several current Harvard visa holders have also faced increased scrutiny at airports. The Guardian reached out for comment to a number of universities with large foreign student populations. Most said they were monitoring the situation and would do what they could to support their students. 'We have a robust set of resources for our incoming and current international students, as well as contingency plans for those who might experience disruptions to their learning,' said Renata Nyul, the vice-president for communications at Northeastern University. A spokesperson for Arizona State University, which has more than 17,000 international students, said that the university is 'monitoring the situation closely and remains committed to fully supporting all international students in completing their degree programs'.
Bloomberg
16 hours ago
- General
- Bloomberg
Supreme Court Lets Trump Strip 500,000 Migrants of Legal Status
The Supreme Court let the Trump administration immediately strip the legal right to temporarily live and work in the US from as many as half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Over two dissents, the high court cleared the Department of Homeland Security to end so-called parole programs that gave migrants from those four countries temporary legal status. The justices put on hold a federal trial court order that had blocked the cancellation while litigation went forward.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Homeland Security labels Maryland, several counties and cities, sanctuary jurisdictions
Federal officials say Maryland is too welcoming to undocumented immigrants, listing the state and several of its counties and cities among more than 500 "sanctuary jurisdictions" nationwide. (Maryland Matters file photo) The Trump administration on Thursday said Maryland and several of its counties and cities are sanctuary jurisdictions for immigrants, a designation that will bring a warning from federal officials along with a vague threat of the loss of unspecified federal funds. The Maryland governments were among more than 500 jurisdictions nationwide, including states and local governments, labeled sanctuary jurisdictions by the Department of Homeland Security, in response to an April 28 executive order by President Donald Trump (R). Sanctuary jurisdictions come in many forms, but they are generally governments with policies that limit the ability of local authorities to cooperate with federal immigration agencies. Supporters say the policies make local communities safer by increasing immigrant trust in local police agencies and making them more willing to work with police. But Trump, in his executive order, said sanctuary policies 'violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws' in a 'lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law.' The order directs the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to contact jurisdictions on the list, and it further requires federal agency heads to identify grants, contracts and other funds that could be withheld from the jurisdictions 'as appropriate.' The Homeland Security list tagged the state of Maryland, eight counties and 10 municipalities. The department said it determined whether a government was a sanctuary jurisdiction 'by factors like compliance with federal law enforcement, information restrictions, and legal protections for illegal aliens.' The department labeled Maryland as a 'Self-Identification as a State Sanctuary Jurisdiction,' but doesn't summarize what that entails. D.C. area food industry shaken after DHS visits more than 100 businesses 'DHS demands that these jurisdictions immediately review and revise their policies to align with Federal immigration laws and renew their obligation to protect American citizens, not dangerous illegal aliens,' the department's statement said. Despite the administration's repeated claim that sanctuary policies violate federal law or obstruct federal immigration enforcement, the policies do neigher. And local officials were already pushing back Thursday against threats from federal officials. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) released a statement Thursday that mentions the possibility of suing the administration, after his city was listed as a sanctuary jurisdiction. 'To be clear: by definition, Baltimore is not a sanctuary city, because we do not have jurisdiction over our jails. We follow our limited obligations as defined under federal immigration law,' Scott said. 'But we are a welcoming city, and we make no apologies for that,' his statement said. 'We are better because of our immigrant neighbors, and we are not about to sell them out to this administration.' Six of the 10 Maryland municipalities the department designated as sanctuary cities are in Prince George's County: the towns of Cheverly and Edmonston, and the cities of College Park, Greenbelt, Hyattsville and Mount Rainier. Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George's), chair of the Legislative Latino Caucus, said in a text message Thursday night that labels such as 'sanctuary jurisdiction' oversimplify work done to serve and protect residents. 'Maryland, Prince George's County and our municipalities have long embraced policies that create welcoming, inclusive communities where all residents – regardless of immigration status – can live with dignity and safety,' Martinez said. 'These local approaches are rooted in public trust, safety and effective governance, not political defiance.' In addition to Baltimore City, the other Maryland cities on the list are Annapolis in Anne Arundel County, and Rockville and Takoma Park in Montgomery County. Maryland counties on the DHS list were Anne Arundel, Baltimore County, Charles, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, Queen Anne's and Talbot. Maryland does offer limited benefits to undocumented immigrants in the state, including the ability to get a driver's license and to be able to buy health insurance in the state marketplace under some circumstances. But state lawmakers also approved a watered-down version of an immigration bill last month, in the final minutes of the 2025 legislative session, That bill was originally going to prohibit so-called 287(g) agreements, which allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to delegate some federal enforcement authorities to local officers. But the Senate stripped that language out and the House relented. The final version of the bill, which becomes law Sunday, gives limited protection against immigration actions in 'sensitive locations,' such as churches, schools or hospitals. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
