Germany offers ‘exile campus’ to Harvard students after foreigner ban
27 May 2025, 21:45
Germany has offered to host an “exile campus” for Harvard University students in response to the Trump administration’s attempts to block the institution from enrolling any more international students.
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The attempts to lure academic talent from the US to Europe comes as the White House aims to rid elite American universities of left-wing ‘tendencies’, according to reports.
Harvard has been a particular punchbag for the president since its leadership spurned the government’s demands for an audit to determine the extent of its “ideological capture by the radical left”, The Times said.
The Trump administration has suspended more than $2.2 billion worth of grants and contracts involving Harvard, then announced it was cancelling the certificate that permits the university to enrol foreign students.
A letter from the US General Services Administration (GSA) has instructed federal agencies to file a list of contracts they have ended with the university by June 6.
Read more: Trump halts student visas in shock move that threatens $44bn U.S. education industry
Read more: Trump to axe $100m in federal contracts for Harvard University after banning foreign students
International student population makes up more than one quarter of Harvard’s student body, with Harvard currently enrolling 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.
On Friday, it was revealed that the decision had been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, but attacks from Trump and his allies have continued.
The president’s administration is ordering US embassies to pause interviews for student visa applications and is weighing up whether to put future students through a social vetting process, according to Politico.
Trump said he wanted to know “who those foreign students are”, suggesting that some of their native countries were “not at all friendly to the United States”.
Kristi Noem, his homeland security secretary, accused Harvard of fostering antisemitism and “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”, with the administration contending the university had hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.
In a statement, Harvard's President Alan M. Garber said: "The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body."
The statement condemned the "unlawful and unwarranted action", and added: "We have just filed a complaint, and a motion for a temporary restraining order will follow. As we pursue legal remedies, we will do everything in our power to support our students and scholars."
