Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump's attempt to deny Harvard students visas

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Trump's attempt to deny visas to Harvard University students.

U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs on Thursday granted a temporary restraining order on Trump's proclamation a day earlier that denies visas to foreign students who planned to enter the U.S. to study at Harvard University, NBC News reported. 

The proclamation also ordered the State Department to review existing visas for foreign students at Harvard to determine whether they should be revoked.

Last month, Burroughs also temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security's effort to limit Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students by revoking its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. On Thursday, she also extended the temporary restraining order for the DHS effort until June 20, or until a preliminary injunction order can be issued in Harvard's ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration.

“Singling out our institution for its enrollment of international students and its collaboration with other educational institutions around the world is yet another illegal step taken by the Administration to retaliate against Harvard,” school President Alan M. Garber said in a letter to the campus community.

According to Harvard's amended complaint, regarding both the proclamation and the DHS effort, they are both "part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard’s exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students."