Category World News

According to the Department of Homeland Security, US President Donald Trump’s administration has prevented Harvard University from enrolling international students.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that the Trump administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordination with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus” in a post on X on Thursday.

Universities can enrol foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition costs to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments, she said. “It is a privilege, not a right. “Harvard had plenty of opportunities to do what was right. It turned down.”

Noem claimed that the university’s Student Exchange Visitor Program certification had been suspended in a letter to the administration. The US Homeland Security Investigations unit, which Noem leads, is in charge of the program.

The decision means that current students must “transfer to another university in order to maintain their non-immigrant status,” according to the letter.

Harvard described the action as “retaliatory action” and “unlawful” in a statement.

The university stated in a statement that “we are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who come from more than 140 countries, and greatly enhance the university and this country.”

The university, which has refused to accept a list of demands related to its diversity programs and response to pro-Palestine protests, and the Trump administration are at odds with each other.

The administration’s response to the administration’s $2.6 billion grant and funding cuts totaled three rounds. The most recent one occurred on Monday. The administration is currently suing Harvard for violating the US Constitution with its conduct.

Alan Garber, president of Harvard, urged alumni to show their support and donations for the university earlier this week.

In an email where he launched the Presidential Priorities Fund and Presidential Fund for Research, Garber wrote, “The institution entrusted to us now faces challenges unlike any other challenges in our long history.” The funding cuts are intended to close any gaps left by the funding cuts.

earlier threat

Noem threatened to revoke Harvard’s Student Exchange Visitor Program certification in April, which is required by educational institutions to accept students on a variety of visa types.

She cited a federal law that mandates disclosures of academic records, enrollment, and disciplinary action for the administration on April 30 to give the administration a deadline of April 30 to provide detailed information about what she called the “illegal and violent activities” of foreign students on campus.

The university later told the agency it had the requested information, according to the Harvard Crimson, but they declined to provide any further details.

The threat came as a result of the Trump administration’s wider crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations at US universities, which federal officials have generally deemed to be “anti-Semitic,” according to Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett.

According to Halkett, a journalist from Washington, DC, “The Trump administration has been clamping down heavily on Harvard and other colleges, including Columbia University,” over what the administration claims are “anti-Semitism” that exists on the campuses.

At the beginning of his presidency, the president established a joint task force to address this, according to her. But opponents claim that it expanded to include everything from changing university curriculum to stricter hiring standards. Trump has accused universities of instigatorating “anti-Trump” ideology.

According to federal data, in the US, in the year 2023, there were 7, 417 schools overall that were eligible for the Student Exchange Visitor Program.

The United States Supreme Court has reached a deadlock in a case over whether a religious charter school in Oklahoma should be publicly funded.

Thursday’s tie vote allows a lower court ruling to stand. Previously, Oklahoma’s state-level Supreme Court had barred the use of government funds to establish the St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, citing constitutional limits to the government’s role in religion.

But the US Supreme Court’s split vote on Thursday leaves an avenue open for other, similar cases to advance. With no decision from the highest court in the country, no new precedent has been set to govern funding for charter schools, which are independent institutions that receive government funding.

It is relatively rare, though, that a Supreme Court case should end in a tie vote. The Houston Law Review in 2020 estimated that there had only been 183 ties at the Supreme Court since 1791, out of more than 28,000 cases.

Normally, there are nine justices on the court’s bench — an odd number, to ensure that the judges are not evenly split.

But Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the hearings over the St Isidore school. Though she did not indicate her reasons, it is widely believed that Barrett stepped away from the case to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

Barrett has a close personal relationship with an adviser to the St Isidore school, lawyer Nicole Garnett. As young legal professionals in the late 1990s, they clerked together on the Supreme Court, and they eventually taught together at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

When US President Donald Trump nominated Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020, Garnett even wrote an opinion column in the newspaper USA Today, praising her friend as “remarkable” and describing their lives as “completely intertwined”.

The Supreme Court’s brief, two-line announcement on Thursday acknowledged Barrett’s absence.

“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” it read. “JUSTICE BARRETT took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.”

That left the court split four to four, though the precise breakdown was not provided. Chief Justice John Roberts is thought to have joined with the three left-leaning justices on the bench to oppose the school’s use of government funds.

The Supreme Court currently has a conservative supermajority, with six justices leaning rightward.

In the past, the court has signalled receptiveness to expanding religious freedoms in the US, including in cases that tested the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.

While that clause bars the government from “the establishment of religion”, what qualifies as establishing a religion remains unclear — and is a source of ongoing legal debate.

The Oklahoma case stretches back to 2023, when the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City submitted an application to open a taxpayer-funded charter school that would share Catholic teachings.

The school would have been the first of its kind, offering public, religious education online for children from kindergarten through high school. The plan was to open the following year.

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board initially voted down the proposal in April, only to give it the go-ahead in June by a narrow vote of three to two.

That teed up a legal showdown, with opponents calling the school a clear violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. But supporters argued that barriers to establishing a Catholic charter school limited their freedom of religion.

Plans for the school even ended up dividing Oklahoma’s government. The state attorney general, Gentner Drummond, opposed the charter school as a form of “state-funded religion”. The governor, Kevin Stitt, supported the proposal. Both men are Republicans.

In Oklahoma, as in the majority of other US states, charter schools are considered part of the public school system.

When the case reached the state-level Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2024, that distinction became pivotal. The fact that St Isidore was a public — not private — school ultimately caused the court to strike it down, for fear of constitutional violations.

The judges ruled in a six-to-two decision that establishing St Isidore with state funds would make it a “surrogate of the state”, just like “any other state-sponsored charter school”.

The school, the judges explained, would “require students to spend time in religious instruction and activities, as well as permit state spending in direct support of the religious curriculum and activities within St. Isidore — all in violation of the establishment clause”.

The school’s backers appealed to the Supreme Court, leading to arguments being held in April. It was unclear at the time which way the high court seemed to be leaning, with Roberts pressing both sides with questions.

But conservatives on the Supreme Court’s bench seemed in favour of backing St Isidore’s appeal. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for instance, argued that withholding taxpayer funds from the religious school “seems like rank discrimination against religion”.

“All the religious school is saying is, ‘Don’t exclude us on account of our religion,’” he said.

The left-leaning justices, meanwhile, indicated that a ruling in favour of St Isidore would pave the way for public schools to become religious institutions, a slippery slope that could require the government to fund faith-based education of all stripes.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has backed a separate lawsuit against the school, framed the deadlock at the Supreme Court as a victory for the separation of church and state.

“The very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms that a religious school can’t be a public school and a public school can’t be religious,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

But proponents pledged to keep on fighting. Jim Campbell, who argued in favour of St Isidore on behalf of Oklahoma’s charter school board, noted that the court may “revisit the issue in the future”, given the deadlock.

It is a welcome realization that Israel, their trusted ally, is engaging in heinous brutality against the people of Gaza with the recent statements from the UK government regarding Israel’s horrific crimes against the people there.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy criticized Israel’s blockade of Gaza as “morally wrong” and “an affront to the British people’s values” while appearing in the Commons yesterday (May 20). In doing so, he also put a few limited, but comparatively minor sanctions in protest. If Israel didn’t put an end to its renewed military offensive and allow aid to enter Gaza, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron, and Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a joint warning of “concrete actions” the day before.

These statements come only after more than a year and a half of relentless civilian casualties, with more than 50, 000 Gazans killed since 2023, including tens of thousands of women and children, making them the most explicit criticism of Israel by Western allies in recent memory. If Western allies had made such a critical assessment of atrocities committed by Israel more than a year ago, how many innocent lives, including those of children, could have been spared?

The key question is now whether this belated moral clarity will be supported by the actionable steps necessary for change, with the word “sinful” being the key phrase.

Why did steadfast allies of Israel decide to speak up and speak out after years of being so eager to ignore Israel’s egregious behavior? I believe the shift is more due to geopolitics and the emergence of new empathy for human suffering.

President Trump has been rumored to have grown weary and tired of Netanyahu, who he sees as a burden on his own deal-making legacy. Trump, in contrast, notably omitted Israel from his most recent trip to the Gulf, citing ongoing lobbying by Netanyahu’s government, which shows a growing disconnect between Washington and Tel Aviv. Without fear of outright US opposition or worse, a White House rebuke, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France now have the diplomatic cover they needed to express their deep-rooted reservations about Israel’s actions.

Add in powerful interventions from seasoned diplomats, renowned experts, and humanitarian workers. Tom Fletcher, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, urged the body to “stop the 21st-century atrocity” that was occurring in Gaza at a UN Security Council briefing on May 13 and that 2.1 million people were in imminent famine. With a straightforward question, “Will you act decisively to prevent genocide and ensure the respect for international humanitarian law,” he correctly challenged Israel’s supporters and the entire international community. Or, would you say, “We did everything possible” instead?

Following this, Fletcher made the heartbreaking plea that 14, 000 babies could die in Gaza unless urgent aid arrived in families within 48 hours. Fourteen thousand babies. Nothing else will prick your moral conscience if that doesn’t. As many others have pointed out, Gaza is hell on earth, and the conditions there are beyond inhumane, and this compelling testimony from a diplomat and humanitarian with decades of experience in conflict zones just underscores what many others have said.

Countries that have supported, armed, and supported Israel are also facing their own complicity as images and livestreams of civilian suffering grow. Not enough isoral outrage on its own. Western governments must take concrete steps rather than a few token sanctions or halt talks on talks that haven’t taken place in months if they truly believe Israel’s actions are “monstrous”, “intolerable,” and “unacceptable,” as the UK government has stated in the last 48 hours.

The UK and its Western allies should now take three specific actions:

First, the UK and its allies must immediately stop all arms exports to Israel and related components. The current UK measures, which suspend just 10% of arms licenses, are utterly insufficient. How can the foreign secretary justify the sale of British weapons, munitions, and components, including parts for F-35 Jets, that facilitate such atrocities if he can describe the atrocities being committed by Israel as “an affront to British values”?

Second, meaningful sanctions must be put in place by the UK. Senior Israeli officials must be the targets of sanctions, not just trivial asset freezes on a select few Israeli figures. Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose recent statements regarding the cleansing and destruction of Gaza were rightly labelled as extremism by the foreign secretary, should be subject to sanctions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. He deserves sanctions as well. To isolate a government that the ICJ has determined to be in violation of the prohibition of apartheid and racial segregation, there should also be a serious discussion of trade embargoes and cultural boycotts, similar to those that were once imposed on apartheid South Africa.

Finally, following the example of European allies Ireland, Norway, and Spain, the UK and Western allies must recognize the State of Palestine right away. If the UK truly believes that a two-state solution is the only way to peace, it can’t just make up its own words by calling for negotiations while acknowledging just one state. We are aware that the Palestine/Israel conflict cannot be resolved militarily. Only diplomacy and negotiations will be able to resolve it. If one people’s rights are completely denied, there can be no real progress toward achieving peace.

Although they are long overdue and welcome, the statements made by Ottawa, Paris, and London over the past few days must serve as a prelude to serious action and sanctions in order to put an end to the people of Gaza.

The countless injured, displaced, and victims of home displacement are far too late for the tens of thousands of Gazans who have died. The rising tide of criticism from the West suggests, however, that these governments have been placed on the wrong side of history, a mistake that they may eventually be held accountable for in the coming years.

Their real strength will be in the actions they take right now, not the rhetorical force that drives them.

I apologise for the premature death of 14, 000 babies, but I’m hoping for action sooner rather than later.

Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine protest leader targeted for deportation by the administration of US President Donald Trump, has sought to have the case against him thrown out in a consequential immigration hearing.

Khali’s lawyers were set to present evidence they say shows “egregious government misconduct” surrounding his March 8 arrest during Thursday’s hearing in Louisiana.

“When there are egregious violations, the case should be thrown out, and that’s what we’ve asked the immigration judge to do,” Mark Van Der Hout, a lawyer representing Khalil, told reporters the night before the proceedings. The violations in question, Van Der Hout said, include the lack of a warrant at the time of the arrest and claims that Khalil proved to be a flight risk.

The hearing could be the most consequential turn yet in a series of cases in which US students have challenged being targeted by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestine advocacy or statements. It comes after three other students – Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri – successfully challenged their detentions.

Ozturk, Mahdawi, and Khan Suri have since been ordered released on bail as their parallel challenges in federal court and their deportation cases in immigration court proceed. Lawyers for the students say their rights, including freedom of speech, have been violated by the Trump administration.

Despite Khalil also challenging his arrest in a federal case in New Jersey, a judge there has yet to make a ruling on whether he should be released. He has remained in detention in Louisiana.

Khalil’s lawyers have accused the Trump administration of trying to slow roll his federal challenge to his arrest and detention, while fast-tracking the immigration proceedings. Judges in immigration courts, which fall under the executive branch, are typically viewed as less independent than life-tenured federal district judges.

“The bigger picture is that the government would like to slow down Mahmoud’s habeas corpus case in federal court before an independent judge who has life tenure,” Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer with the City University of New York’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) project, told reporters.

“And they’d like to accelerate as much as possible these immigration proceedings, as they have so far, in front of a government employee who is subject to government pressure,” he said.

Immigration Judge Jamee Comans had previously sided with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that Khalil is deportable under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act because his presence in the US poses “adverse foreign policy consequences”.

Rubio has broadly portrayed Khalil’s involvement in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University as “anti-Semitic”, but has not provided any further evidence to the court supporting the claim.

Khalil and his legal team have firmly denied that his advocacy contained any anti-Jewish sentiment, and no evidence of such conduct has emerged.

Warrant-less arrest

Thursday’s hearing will not hinge on the government’s motivation for targeting Khalil, but will instead focus on procedural missteps by immigration agents.

Those agents had initially claimed that they had a warrant to detain Khalil when they confronted him in the lobby of his Manhattan apartment building. They later admitted they did not have a warrant, but arrested Khalil because they said his actions and statements indicated he was a flight risk.

Surveillance footage of the encounter contradicts that statement, Khalil’s lawyers maintain.

“We filed, over the last probably 48 hours, new evidence, including a video surveillance from Columbia that we got through a subpoena that clearly shows there was no attempt to flee whatsoever,” Van Der Hout said.

Lawyers for Khalil are also separately arguing that he is eligible for asylum. They say the unfounded claims made by the Trump administration that Khalil is a “Hamas supporter” would put him at risk if he were to be deported to his birthplace of Syria, or to Algeria, where he has citizenship.

Ahead of the hearing, officials from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied a meeting between Khalil, his wife, Noor Abdalla, and their son, who was born while Khalil remained in detention.