Save Munir
Harvard must help its student at risk
Published On Friday, May 01, 2009 1:10 AM
By THE CRIMSON STAFF


In a surprising case of immigration policy affecting Harvard, Nur Munir, a candidate for a master’s degree at the Harvard Divinity School, is now in York County Prison in Pennsylvania awaiting deportation. After facilitating the downfall of Indonesian President Suharto in 1998, Munir feared persecution from Suharto’s military supporters and fled to America. However, his application for asylum was denied, appealed, and finally denied again on March 18, 2009, by the Third Circuit. Regardless of the validity of his asylum claims—Munir was found to have credible subjective but not objective fears of persecution—it is unreasonable that Munir be forced to leave America and family before finishing his studies.

Munir has applied for deferred action so that he can finish his degree at Harvard, and this is where the University can play an important role in protecting one of its students from deportation. Harvard has one of the strongest support networks for international students. But the Harvard International Office—supposedly dedicated to helping students like Munir navigate the byzantine bureaucracy of the American immigration system—has shown a deplorable lack of involvement in his case.

While the HIO bends over backward to ensure that international students have the appropriate visas to join the ranks of Wall Street financiers, it seems to have left this student at the Divinity School in the cold. Munir’s case ought to be just as compelling as that of an international student who needs to file an I-20 extension with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The HIO should use all of its considerable resources, connections, and expertise in immigration law to help Munir. It is ironic that we have a “scholars-at-riskâ€