A federal judge in Boston agreed Monday to extend a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump's attempt to block international students from entering the U.S. to study at Harvard.
The update is a near-term win for the nation's oldest university in its months-long fight with the Trump administration.
Lawyers for Harvard had urged U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs on Monday to extend two restraining orders that blocked the Trump administration from revoking its credentials under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP, and which temporarily blocked a proclamation Trump signed earlier this month that barred foreign nationals from traveling to the U.S. if they planned to study or research at Harvard.
"The proclamation is a plain violation of the First Amendment," Ian Gershengorn, a lawyer for Harvard, told Judge Burroughs in court on Monday in seeking a preliminary injunction, a more lasting form of court-ordered relief.
CONTINUED COURT FIGHTS COULD PUT HARVARD IN UNWINNABLE POSITION VS TRUMP
Burroughs extended the temporary restraining order through June 23, noting that she needed more time to formally rule on the request for injunctive relief.
"We'll kick out an opinion as soon as we can," she told the court Monday afternoon, shortly before proceedings wrapped for the day.
At issue is a push to revoke Harvard's credentials under its SEVP program, announced by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in May; and a separate proclamation signed by Trump in June, seeking to block foreign nationals from entering the U.S. if they were planning to study or conduct research at Harvard.
Both actions were temporarily blocked by Burroughs. Now, lawyers for the school are pushing for a more permanent form of relief known as a preliminary injunction.
In the interim, lawyers for Harvard said that the Trump administration's actions have injected "unnecessary uncertainty for Harvard and its students, who may yet again have their status as lawfully present nonimmigrants in the United States abruptly and categorically rescinded."
Harvard argued that the Trump administration's actions would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the First Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment - injecting "continued chaos and lasting damage on Harvard for no compelling reason," they said in a filing.
STATE DEPARTMENT NOW SCRUTINIZING ALL VISA HOLDERS ASSOCIATED WITH HARVARD
Trump officials have accused Harvard University of "fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus," according to a statement earlier this year, and for failing to account for "known illegal activity" on its campus.
Lawyers for Harvard told Burroughs in court on Monday that these actions have already injected uncertainty into the lives of their international students.
They noted that some foreign students were incorrectly denied visas after indicating their plans to study at Harvard, while at least four other students were wrongfully detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials earlier this month upon arriving in the U.S. at Boston's Logan International Airport.
TRUMP NOMINATES FORMER DEFENSE ATTORNEY EMIL BOVE FOR FEDERAL APPEALS COURT VACANCY
Harvard is also fighting to retain its SEVP accreditation. The program is run by the Department of Homeland Security and allows universities to sponsor international students for U.S. visas for the duration of their enrollment at a public university.
If it loses that status, experts previously told Fox News, thousands of international students currently enrolled at Harvard will have a narrow window to either transfer to another U.S. university, or risk losing their student visas within 180 days.
Lawyers for Harvard previously told Burroughs that ending their SEVP certification would affect roughly 7,000 international students at Harvard - or some 27% of its total student body.
Monday's hearing was the latest in a string of legal dust-ups that have pitted Harvard against the Trump administration - or vice versa - in Trump's second White House term.
100 DAYS OF INJUNCTIONS, TRIALS AND 'TEFLON DON': TRUMP SECOND TERM MEETS ITS BIGGEST TESTS IN COURT
Since Trump took office in January, the administration has already frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts awarded to the university, and is proposing to end its tax-exempt status, among other things.
The administration is also targeting Harvard with investigations led by six separate federal agencies.
Combined, these actions have created a wide degree of uncertainty at Harvard.
Legal experts noted the court is wading into largely uncharted territory.
Asked how it might play out, many scholars pointed to a lack of precedent and offered no clear answer.
"As with many things that Trump does, the answer is unclear, because it hasn't been done before," Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law, said last month. "No president has tried to do this before, so I don't think there's a clear precedent on the answer."
