Harvard granted near-term win in international student fight

A federal judge in Boston agreed Monday to extend a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump’s attempt to block international students from entering the U.S. to study at Harvard. 

The update is a near-term win for the nation’s oldest university in its months-long fight with the Trump administration.

Lawyers for Harvard had urged U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs on Monday to extend two restraining orders that blocked the Trump administration from revoking its credentials under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP, and which temporarily blocked a proclamation Trump signed earlier this month that barred foreign nationals from traveling to the U.S. if they planned to study or research at Harvard. 

“The proclamation is a plain violation of the First Amendment,” Ian Gershengorn, a lawyer for Harvard, told Judge Burroughs in court on Monday in seeking a preliminary injunction, a more lasting form of court-ordered relief. 

CONTINUED COURT FIGHTS COULD PUT HARVARD IN UNWINNABLE POSITION VS TRUMP

Burroughs extended the temporary restraining order through June 23, noting that she needed more time to formally rule on the request for injunctive relief.

“We’ll kick out an opinion as soon as we can,” she told the court Monday afternoon, shortly before proceedings wrapped for the day.

At issue is a push to revoke Harvard’s credentials under its SEVP program, announced by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in May; and a separate proclamation signed by Trump in June, seeking to block foreign nationals from entering the U.S. if they were planning to study or conduct research at Harvard. 

Both actions were temporarily blocked by Burroughs. Now, lawyers for the school are pushing for a more permanent form of relief known as a preliminary injunction.

In the interim, lawyers for Harvard said that the Trump administration’s actions have injected “unnecessary uncertainty for Harvard and its students, who may yet again have their status as lawfully present nonimmigrants in the United States abruptly and categorically rescinded.”

Harvard argued that the Trump administration’s actions would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the First Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment – injecting “continued chaos and lasting damage on Harvard for no…