Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University

Proclamation 10948 of June 4, 2025 Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University A Proclamation Admission into the United States to attend, conduct research, or teach at our Nation's institutions of higher education is a privilege granted by our Government, not a guarantee. That privilege is necessarily tied to the host institution's compliance and commitment to following Federal law. Harvard University has failed in this respect, among many others. The Student Exchange Visa Program (SEVP) depends fundamentally on academic institutions' good faith, transparency, and full adherence to the relevant regulatory frameworks. This is for crucial national-security reasons. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has long warned that foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions, and spread false information for political or other reasons. Our adversaries, including the People's Republic of China, try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States. Protecting our national security requires host institutions of foreign students to provide sufficient information, when asked, to enable the Federal Government to identify and address misconduct by those foreign students. In my judgment, it presents an unacceptable risk to our Nation's security for an academic institution to refuse to provide sufficient information, when asked, about known instances of misconduct and criminality committed by its foreign students. This principle is one reason why SEVP regulations require foreign students to obey Federal and State criminal laws and require universities to keep records about foreign students' studies in the United Sta…