Harvard to urge judge to bar Trump from closing doors for international students

BOSTON - A federal judge is set to consider on Monday whether to extend an order blocking President Donald Trumps plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs during a hearing in Boston will weigh whether to issue an injunction barring Trumps administration from implementing his latest bid to curtail Harvards ability to host international students while the universitys lawsuit challenging the restrictions plays out.

Almost 6,800 international students attended Harvard in its most recent school year, making up about 27% of the student population of the prestigious school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. China and India are among the top countries of origin for these students.

The judge scheduled the hearing after issuing a temporary restraining order on June 6 preventing the administration from implementing a proclamation that Trump had signed a day earlier.

His administration has launched a multifront attack on the oldest and wealthiest U.S. university, freezing billions of dollars in grants and other funding and proposing to end its tax-exempt status, prompting a series of legal challenges.

Harvard argues that the administration is retaliating against it in violation of the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech for refusing to accede to its demands to control the schools governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.

It has filed two separate lawsuits before Burroughs seeking to unfreeze $2.5 billion in funding and to prevent Trumps administration from blocking the ability of international students to attend the university.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on May 22 announced that her department was immediately revoking Harvards Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, the governmental mechanism that allows it to enroll foreign students.

Her action was almost immediately blocked by Burroughs. While the