Another salvo fired at Harvard

National security has nothing to do with this latest folly.

By Brian O’Neill

The Trump administration’s attempt last week to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students—temporarily blocked by a district court on Friday— is not about national security. It is political punishment framed as law enforcement.

In a letter signed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and circulated on social media, the administration declared that Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification was revoked. Noem cited the university’s alleged failure to hand over disciplinary records and its supposed tolerance of a campus climate hostile to Jewish students and favorable to pro-Hamas protestors.

Prior to the court’s staying order, nearly 7,000 foreign students, some just weeks from graduation, found themselves under threat and needing to transfer or leave the country. Admitted students still abroad and preparing for the fall semester were now facing an uncertain future. No public hearing, no evidence of wrongdoing—just reprisal, cloaked in official language.

Let’s put aside, for a moment, the transparent motives behind this decision: the administration’s ongoing effort to pressure universities into ideological submission and the desire to make an example out of a campus that refuses to bend the knee.

Even if we indulge the fantasy that this was a neutral act in defense of national interest, the underlying rationale collapses under scrutiny.

Let’s test the logic. Strip away the slogans, the press statements, and the performative outrage, and what remains doesn’t hold up. The government’s own data, threat assessments, and enrollment trends paint a very different picture from the one being used to justify punitive action.

Myth: Foreign students, especially from China, pose a systemic threat of espionage.

The idea that foreign students—particularly those from China—pose a systemic espionage threat has become a favorite talking point, but it lacks foundation. The Annual Threat Assessments from both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security cite China’s intent to monitor its citizens abroad and leverage academic access for influence, but, critically, they offer little to no evidence that foreign students, either individually or as a group, are engaged in espionage. No other adversary, including Russia or Iran, is flagged for comparable concerns in this context. The emphasis is on Beijing’s strategy, not student conduct.

Myth: Foreign students drive and organize violent campus protests.

The vast majority of demonstrations have been organized by American students. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), over 97% of campus protests between October 2023 and May 2024 remained peaceful. In high-profile cases, including Columbia University and City College of New York, police reported that substantian numbers of those arrested were not even affiliated with the university.

Myth: Foreign students displace American applicants and drain resources.

There is no evidence that international students crowd out qualified Americans. Most foreign students are in graduate programs or large public universities that can expand capacity. They pay full tuition more often than domestic students, and that money helps fund scholarships, research, and academic programs for everyone. A 2021 study found little impact on U.S. student enrollment. In fact, the real problem isn’t too many students—it’s too few. Undergraduate enrollment in the United States has dropped nearly 15% since 2010, driven by declining birth rates, rising tuition, and growing doubts about whether college is worth the cost. Furthermore, a 2020 study found that international students increase graduation efficiency of universities and increase the graduation rates of domestic students.

Myth: Train them and then they leave and compete against us.

Most international graduates don’t leave. About 75% of international STEM graduates stay in the United States after earning their degrees. These graduates fill key gaps in the U.S. science and engineering workforce—foreign-born professionals now make up 43% of doctorate-level STEM jobs in the country. They don’t take jobs away; one study found that each international graduate with an advanced degree creates up to 0.23 U.S. jobs. Many go on to build companies—about one in five U.S. billion-dollar startup companies has at least one founder who first came here as an international student.

Myth: The United States gains no financial benefit from foreign student enrollments.

International students, who often pay full tuition, generated nearly $43.8 billion in economic activity and supported 378,000 U.S. jobs during the 2023–24 academic year. Studies show that revenue from full‑fare international students enables universities to subsidize domestic education—particularly when state and federal support is dwindling. In fact, the presence of foreign students allows expansion in research capacity, course offerings, and financial aid—all benefiting American students, rather than depriving them.

For all the rhetoric about foreign students as threats, here’s a fact worth noting: West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy reserve slots per class for international students. West Point usually admits up to 60 international students in each year.

While we demonize those who come here to learn, we forget that thousands of American students study overseas every year under the banner of diplomacy, cultural exchange, and global leadership. One study estimates the number of U.S. students studying abroad for credit during the 2022-23 academic year increased by 49% to over 280,000. We call it soft power when it’s our students abroad but treat it as a threat when others do the same.

The hypocrisy is transparent. But the reality that many will hear the DHS secretary’s reasoning and instinctively agree it is reasonable.

I remember confronting these very myths in the 2010s during a closed-door discussion with a senior member of Congress. The representative was convinced—earnestly—that foreign students were siphoning away American opportunities and threatened national security. The person’s instincts told them it had to be true.

But it wasn’t. Not in the intelligence reporting. Not in the data. Not in the lived experience of the very national security institutions the congressional member professed to trust.

And now, with the ritual fatigue that comes from stating the obvious too many times: A country that once prided itself on attracting the world’s brightest now builds policy on fear and resentment, squandering an advantage it may never recover.

Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, is an instructor on strategic intelligence at Georgia Tech.

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