Trump's Harvard visa threat could wipe out several of the school's sports teams
Handful of Canadians among many student-athletes competing on international visas
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.
- Are you a Canadian attending Harvard University? How will the Trump administration's move to bar foreign students affect you and your studies? We'd like to hear from you. Send an email to ask@cbc.ca
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."
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."
