Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
We're coming to you live from London.
I'm James Menendez.
It seems as
if barely a week goes by without another broadside from the Trump administration against some of the US's most prestigious universities,
which it regards as hotbeds of anti-Semitism and left-wing ideology.
There's the threat to remove hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from several leading institutions,
Brown, Cornell and Northwestern among them.
Then a move to stop Harvard University, a particular focus of the White House's animus,
from enrolling international students, a major source of... income.
And now this week,
an order from the State Department to US embassies around the world to suspend new appointments for student visas ahead of new guidance on social media vetting.
Here's the State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce speaking on Tuesday.
We use every tool in our tool chest to vet anyone.
coming in, who wants to come into this country.
And in order to do so, it has to apply for a visa to gain access to our nation.
So every sovereign country has a right to know who's trying to come in,
why they want to come in, who they are,
what they've been doing, and at least hopefully within that framework,
determine what they will be doing while they're here.