Trump’s Harvard visa threat could wipe out several of the school’s sports teams

Members of Yale crew, left, and Harvard crew, right, greet one another after the four-mile course along the Thames River for the 146th Harvard-Yale Regatta, in New London, Conn., Saturday, May 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Some of Harvard’s sports teams would be virtually wiped out by a Trump administration decision announced on Thursday that would make the Ivy League school with the nation’s largest athletic program ineligible for international student visas.

Seven of the eight rowers on the men’s heavyweight crew team that just won the Eastern Sprints title — and is headed to the national championships — list international hometowns on the school’s website. Mick Thompson, the leading scorer last season, and Jack Bar, who was a captain, are among a handful of Canadians on the men’s hockey roster; 10 of the 13 members of the men’s squash team and more than half of the women’s soccer and golf rosters also list foreign hometowns.

Harvard’s 42 varsity sports teams are the most in the nation, and Sportico reported last month that 21 per cent of the players on the school’s rosters for the 2024-25 seasons — or 196 out of 919 athletes — had international hometowns. The site noted that some could be U.S. citizens or green card holders who wouldn’t need one of the international visas at issue in an escalating fight premised by the administration’s assertions that the school failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, saying the school has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. The move could force as many as 6,800 foreign students at the school outside of Boston — more than a quarter of its total enrollment — to transfer or leave the country.

Harvard called the action unlawful and said it is working to provide guidance to students. President Alan Garber, noting that he is himself Jewish, said last month after filing a lawsuit to halt a federal funding freeze that the school “will continue to fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law. That is not only our legal responsibility. It is our moral imperative.”

Harvard athletic director Erin McDermott previously declined an interview request from The Associated Press on the potential impact of the visa ban. A Harvard athletics spokesman on Thursday referred a request for comment to the school’s main media information office, which did not immediately respond. The AP also requested comment from three Harvard coaches, who did not respond.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former Harvard hockey player, declined to comment when contacted by the AP. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who played basketball at Harvard, said the athletes are among 85,000 foreign students who come to the state to “study, conduct research, start businesses, and create jobs and innovations.”

“President Trump is punishing our students and hurting our economy, all as part of his agenda to silence anyone who disagrees with him,” she said. “The only ones who benefit from Donald Trump’s actions are China and other countries who are already recruiting these students. It’s the exact opposite of America First.”

Jimmy Golen, The Associated Press