'Used Like Pawns': International Harvard Students Call Out Trump's Tactics
Source: Huff Post
May 27, 2025, 08:50 PM EDT
In a Tuesday evening protest on campus, Harvard students lambasted President Donald Trump for targeting the school’s international students as the White House continues to ramp up attacks on the Ivy League university. “In his attempt to dictate our speech and take over this university, Trump is willing to use all internationals as poker chips, as collateral. It is deeply, deeply dehumanizing,” said graduating senior Leo Gerdén, an international student from Sweden, who wore a cap and gown to the protest. “We never wanted to take this fight, but we have no choice but to take it. Because if we start to give in, he’s going to demand even more.”
The Trump administration took aim at Harvard’s international students last week, revoking the university’s ability to enroll them. It’s a move that could affect as many as 6,800 students at the school — nearly 30% of the student body — forcing them to transfer or lose their legal status. And it’s since been contested by Harvard and blocked by a federal judge, though a final ruling about its legality is still to come. This act is just one of many Trump has taken to undermine Harvard after it refused to comply with the White House’s demands to change hiring policies and curriculum, and to combat what the administration has described as antisemitism on campus.
Trump’s actions have fueled uncertainty and chaos for the school’s international students, who aren’t sure if they’ll be able to return for another semester — and who fear they’re simply being used as “pawns” in the White House’s ongoing tirade against Harvard. “When I first read the news, I was in a state of shock,” Alfred Williamson, a Harvard freshman from Wales, told HuffPost in an email. “I spent the next few hours speaking to other internationals at Harvard — some phoned me up in tears and I spoke to others about the possibility of transferring.”
Speakers echoed these concerns at the protest on Tuesday, which was organized by a Harvard student activist group called Students for Freedom. “Seeing what happened to students who speak out, my family is really worried about my safety in the U.S.,” one international student reportedly told the group, which read aloud a slew of anonymous accounts due to concerns that people had about retaliation.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harvard-international-students-protest-trump_n_683646dde4b06a204c7eab3f
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