Confused and Nervous, Harvard's Singaporean Students Told to Wait for Updates

For 150 of them, plans thrown into disarray, visa and job statuses hang in the balance

- Marina Lopes and Angelica Ang

WASHINGTON - The news arrived quietly on his mobile phone — that Harvard University has been barred from enrolling international students. This means his ability to finish his degree there, the culmination of a lifetime of work, is now in jeopardy.

The student, who declined to give his name given the sensitivities involved, is one of more than 150 Singaporeans enrolled at the university.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on May 22 that Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Programme certification has been revoked with immediate effect. This affects nearly 6,800 international students, who would have to transfer school or face deportation.

"(Harvard) has always been a dream of mine, and I'm happy to have had the chance to experience it at least, though I don't know how much longer that's going to last," the Singaporean student told The Straits Times. "It's sad to think that these opportunities might not be available for others."

Throughout the day, his phone buzzed constantly — professors checking in, classmates offering support. But the university's guidance has been limited. "Wait for updates," students have been told. In the meantime, he has cancelled a long-anticipated trip home.

The US administration's decision marked the latest escalation in a broader campaign to reshape the landscape of American higher education by directly targeting one of the country's most prestigious universities and its ability to draw top talent from around the world.

President Donald Trump had claimed that private colleges and schools across the US foster anti-American, Marxist and "radical left" ideologies.

By midday, the leafy campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was restless. Students rang up their embassies and flooded the inbox of the international student offices.