On Thursday, the Trump administration announced an investigation into J-1 visa fraud at Harvard and eight other universities, following an appeals court hearing earlier this week where a Department of Justice lawyer told federal judges that U.S. President Donald Trump is “very likely” to take action to ban international students from Harvard.
The government’s attorney made the statement during a court hearing to consider a June 2025 presidential proclamation that sought to prevent international students from entering the U.S. to study at the University. The ban never took effect, because a U.S. district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking it. That proclamation expired in December 2025.
Two days after the hearing, Vice President J.D. Vance announced in a press conference that the government would investigate Harvard, along with eight other universities, for possible fraud via the J-1 visa program, which allows non-citizens to study and conduct research or graduate work in the United States. Vance said that the universities use these visas “ way too much,” thus undermining the wages for American graduate students and researchers.
The other schools under investigation are Yale, MIT, Stanford, Brown, Arizona State University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California, Davis, and the California Institute of Technology.
The dispute over international student attendance began on May 22, 2025, when the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s certification for hosting international students. Harvard sued in response, calling the move a “blatant violation of the First Amendment,” and obtained a temporary restraining order. Then, on June 4, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation barring international students planning to study at Harvard from entering the United States, citing national security concerns. In June 2025, a U.S. district court in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order.
The arguments on Tuesday before a panel of three federal judges—Gustavo Gelpí, O. Rogeriee Thompson, and Joshua Dunlap—addressed two key questions. First, the court needs to determine whether the case is moot, because the expired presidential proclamation has not been renewed. If the court decides that the case should nevertheless proceed, it could then rule on the legality of the international students ban.
In an unusual convergence, both Harvard’s and the government’s attorneys argued that the case should not be dismissed solely because the presidential proclamation has expired, since the Trump administration is expected to persist in its effort to bar international students from studying at Harvard.
Department of Justice lawyer Tiberius Davis, representing the federal government, said that while he cannot speak for the president, he expects that Trump is “very likely to reissue a similar proclamation,” citing discussions with unnamed White House officials.
Representing Harvard, attorney Paul Clement ’92 also urged the court not to dismiss the case. “I don’t think Harvard has any assurance that there wouldn’t be a proclamation [re]issued within a week, and then we’d be back to square zero,” he told the judges.
Discussing the merits of the case, Davis reiterated the government’s position that the president has the power to suspend the entry of non-citizens to protect national security. Harvard, the government claims in its lawsuit, had threatened U.S. interests by failing to curb antisemitism on its campus, by allowing China to exploit the student visa program, and by refusing to provide data on current student visa holders to the Trump administration when requested.
“We can’t trust Harvard to monitor and discipline these international students,” Davis said in court on Tuesday.
University lawyers contend that allowing the Trump administration to single out a specific domestic institution in this manner would set a dangerous precedent.
The presidential proclamation, Clement argued, “doesn’t prevent a single foreign national from entry into this country as long as they steer clear of Harvard,” calling it “entirely unprecedented.”
During the hearing, Judge Gelpí asked the government to explain why, if curbing antisemitism was a rationale for the presidential proclamation barring international students, the Trump administration has in effect barred Israeli and Jewish international students from entering the United States if they intend to study at Harvard. Davis replied that antisemitism was only one of several reasons behind the federal action.
There is no set timeline for the appeals court to rule on the case.
This article was updated on October 8, 2026.
