Nine international students of MIT are Trump’s latest target
16 Apr, 2025 10:34 IST|Sakshi Post
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) appears to be the new target of US President Donald Trump as the visa and immigration statuses of nine of its international students were revoked without any proper explanation on Monday (April 13).
Expressing concern over the development, University President Sally Kornbluth sent a letter to the MIT community stating that the move could lead to a shortage of talented researchers and students.
"Since April 4, nine members of our community - students, recent graduates and postdocs - have had their visas and immigration status unexpectedly revoked," Kornbluth wrote, adding that there was an alarming lack of warnings or any reasoning behind the decisions.
Other renowned universities, including Harvard and Standford, have been impacted by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
On Tuesday (April 14), Donald Trump imposed a freeze on $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard University after it refused to comply with a series of policy demands issued by the administration, including shutting down its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, cooperating with federal immigration screenings, and overhauling governance, hiring, and admissions practices.
In response to the demands, the University published a public letter, stressing, “No government should control what a private university teaches or whom it hires and admits.”
Harvard President Alan Garber affirmed the university’s refusal to yield to government pressure. “We will not negotiate over our independence or constitutional rights,” Garber wrote.
Trump has now threatened to revoke the University’s tax-exempt status. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote that Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if the premier college does not agree to his demands to change how it runs itself, which would include a selection of students and authority for professors.
