International Harvard students in panic after Trump move to scrap their enrolment

Washington: International Harvard students are experiencing “pure panic” after the US's Donald Trump administration cracked the whip to cancel foreign enrollment in the iconic seat of learning.

A CNN report said students from around the globe are coming to grips with the possibility of revoked visas, suspended research and being blocked from reentry to the United States if they leave this summer.

However, a federal judge temporarily halted the Trump administration’s ban on Friday, after Harvard bosses filed a suit in federal court.

Harvard has argued that the cancellation of the revocation of its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program was “clear retaliation” for its refusal of the government’s ideologically rooted policy demands.

But thousands of international students continue to be “very clearly, extremely afraid” because they don’t know their current legal status, Harvard student body co-president Abdullah Shahid Sial, who is from Lahore, Pakistan, told CNN.

“They’re literally like, teenagers, thousands of miles away from their hometowns having to deal with this situation, which lawyers often fear to engage in,” said Sial, who is currently traveling overseas after exams.

“As of right now, I’m not sure if I can attend the next semester or not,” he said.

About 27% of Harvard’s student body is international, with 6,793 international undergraduates and grad students hailing from nearly every country in the world.

“Many of us have worked our entire lives to get to a university like Harvard, and now we need to wait around and see if we might have to transfer out and face difficulties with visas,” says Karl Molden, from Austria.

Molden, who is also traveling abroad and concerned he won’t be allowed to return to campus, said he feels international students are being used as a “ball in this larger fight between democracy and authoritarianism.”