President Donald Trump suggested a 15% cap on international students at Harvard University during a conversation with reporters on Wednesday at the Oval Office.
“We have people want to go to Harvard and other schools, they can’t get in because we have foreign students there. But I want to make sure that the foreign students are people that can love our country,” he said.
Trump said he wants to know where students “come from.”
“If somebody is coming from a certain country and they’re 100% fine, which I hope most of them are, but many of them won’t be, you’re going to see some very radical people. They’re taking people from areas of the world that are very radicalized and we don’t want them making trouble in our country,” he said.
The comment comes after the federal government’s revocation of a key certification that allows Harvard to enroll international students. Harvard subsequently sued and asked for a temporary restraining order, which a federal judge allowed.
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Harvard has been in a battle with the federal government since April. There has been a wave of federal research grant terminations at Harvard University, in addition to a $60 million in multi-year grants, $450 million cut and a $2.2 billion freeze.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has also told the institution that the federal government would be barring Harvard University from acquiring new federal grants while the university continues to refuse to comply with the administration’s demands for change on its campus.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration directed federal agencies to cut off existing contracts with Harvard or transfer them to other vendors.
Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon that they share the same “common ground,” but the university “will not surrender its core, legally-protected principles out of fear.”
Garber pushed back on the administration through a lawsuit in April. The institution argues that its constitutional rights had been violated by the government‘s threats to pull billions of dollars in funding if the school didn’t comply with demands for an overhaul.Following the $450 million announced cuts, the university amended its lawsuit.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” the suit reads.
Due to the federal cuts, Harvard announced that it was committing $250 million of “central funding” to support research impacted by suspended and canceled federal grants.
