Trump Takes Aim at Harvard's Foreign Students, Tax-Free Status

President Donald Trump's administration has escalated its ongoing battle with Harvard, threatening to revoke the university's ability to host international students as the president called for withdrawing Harvard's tax-exempt status.

- Associated Press

WASHINGTON:

The Department of Homeland Security ordered Harvard late Tuesday to turn over "detailed records" of its foreign student visa holders' "illegal and violent activities" by April 30. International students make up 27% of the campus. The department also said it was canceling two grants to the school totaling $2.7 million.

The moves deepen the crackdown on Harvard, which on Monday became the first university to openly defy the administration's demands related to activism on campus, anti-semitism and diversity. The federal government has already frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts to the Ivy League institution.

Trump suggested on Tuesday on social media that Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status "if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?"