Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said during a recent interview that President Trump is looking to “exact vengeance” on Harvard University after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) blocked the Ivy League institution from enrolling foreign students.
Raskin said on Friday night that the administration's move to rescind Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification is “definitely unconstitutional because it was in retaliation for Harvard rejecting the last round of unconstitutional attacks on its autonomy."
“When Donald Trump essentially said that the federal government of the United States was going to take over their admissions process, take over their faculty hiring process, take over their curriculum, Harvard just said, that's a bridge too far. No way,” Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said during his Friday night appearance on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” show.
The Maryland Democrat, a Harvard Law School alumnus, argued Trump is “trying to exact vengeance and retaliation again by taking it out on 7,000 students from other countries, forcing them to completely change their plans, turning their lives upside down and stripping Harvard of a quarter of its students.”
The White House slammed Raskin on Saturday, stating Harvard is "facing the consequences" for its actions.
"Jamie Raskin has zero credibility left after he’s unsuccessfully launched one liberal hoax after another against President Trump," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Hill.
"Harvard has turned into a hotbed for anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators that put American students at risk," she continued. "They’ve repeatedly failed to address the serious issues plaguing their campus, despite warnings, and now they’re facing the consequences."
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, when announcing the foreign student ban, said the administration was holding the elite school accountable for “fostering violence,” not doing enough to combat antisemitism and “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
The administration’s task force for combating antisemitism said earlier this month that Harvard has “failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus.” A Harvard University Police Department report, released in October last year, found that a number of hate crimes reported to law enforcement at the school doubled, going from five to 10 between 2022 and 2023.
Noem said that because of the certification being revoked, international students will need to transfer to another school or they would risk jeopardizing their legal status in the U.S.
Harvard filed a lawsuit Friday morning alleging the administration’s actions violated the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs granted a temporary restraining order hours later and set a hearing for May 29 to deliberate whether a longer pause is necessary.
The White House said on Friday that the American people elected Trump, “not random local judges with their own liberal agenda –— to run the country.”
“These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy,” Jackson previously said.
Raskin characterized the administration's actions as a “completely lawless situation."
“The administration doesn't get to control higher education in America and tell colleges and universities what to do. They don't get to control newspaper entities and TV networks the way Donald Trump has been trying to do,” Raskin said Friday night. “And they don't get to control law firms or any other private entity, but they're trying to move us into an authoritarian situation, so he can continue to embark upon his corruption tour of the world.”
The Trump administration has gone back-and-forth with Harvard in recent months, terminating nearly $3 billion worth of federal grants as the president warns the school that its tax-exempt status could be revoked.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump said on Truth Social in early May.
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