News and Community Statements

Harvard immigration clinic sues for records on ICE detention

January 18, 2022

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Harvard Law School clinic has sued federal immigration officials for failing to release records about the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention facilities.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program said in a lawsuit filed in Boston federal court that it submitted records requests to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the agencies...

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Letter to Acting Chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

November 29, 2021

Letter to Acting Chief Andria Strano in support of the proposed rule on DACA

Dear Acting Chief Strano: 

With great appreciation for the Administration’s efforts to protect and vigorously defend our nation’s Dreamers, I offer the following comments in strong support of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposed rule on Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. ...

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Bacow letter urges Biden to reverse Trump immigration curbs

December 15, 2020

Harvard president backs DACA, TPS, and ending Muslim-nation travel ban

Harvard President Larry Bacow has urged President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to reverse a series of immigration restrictions imposed by the Trump administration over the past four years, arguing that the steady flow of talented immigrants to the United States — many coming to study at a college or university — historically has been a key ingredient of the nation’s innovation economy.

...

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Letter to President-elect Biden

December 11, 2020

A Letter from Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow

Dear Mr. President-elect:

I am pleased to offer my warmest congratulations on your election as the 46th president of the United States. As we look ahead to the nation’s 245th year, it is my hope that you will be guided by our history, uplifted by our ideals, and inspired by the best among us, including those who were born elsewhere but who built their lives in the US.

Nearly every country in the world admits immigrants, but the United States has long been defined by the...

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Defending those yearning to breathe free

August 21, 2020

Program gives legal advice on immigration to students, scholars, and staff

Growing up in his native Lebanon, he worried about being outed as a gay man in a homophobic land. After finishing his undergraduate in biochemistry and a master’s in France, he came to the U.S. to pursue a doctoral degree at Harvard. But he still did not feel safe.

Until February.

The fourth-year Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was granted asylum based on his fear of persecution if...

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AAC&U Statement on the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision

June 18, 2020

Association of American Colleges & Universities

AAC&U celebrates today’s ruling by the US Supreme Court, which keeps in place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 

DACA provides protection against deportation for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to our country as children, notably including an estimated 2 percent of college students. For these valued members of our national and campus communities, today’s ruling ends the agonizing uncertainty they had faced as a result of the Trump administration...

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Supreme Court decision shielding DACA draws relief, celebration

June 18, 2020

Harvard president, recipients, and professors hope it will lead to more comprehensive immigration reform

In a closely watched and hotly awaited ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly rejected the Trump’s administration’s move to end a program protecting young undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, shielding for now nearly 700,000 so-called Dreamers from deportation.

The 5-4 decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was written by Chief Justice John Roberts ’76, J.D. ’79, who sided with more-liberal...

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Decision on DACA

June 18, 2020

A Community Letter from Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

Earlier today, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Regents of the University of California, et al., invalidating the rescission of the DACA program because it was procedurally deficient. Hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to this country as children have been granted a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from uncertainty.

Throughout my career in higher...

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A celebration of immigration

March 8, 2019

With DACA in place for now, day's events focus on protecting students, and on the artistry that other cultures bestow

Life for undocumented immigrants is full of risks. Any encounter with law-enforcement officials — on the sidewalk, while they are driving, or in their homes in the middle of the night — can lead to arrest and possible deportation.

But in all such cases, undocumented immigrants have rights. They have the right to remain silent, to refuse to consent to a search, and to...

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps

October 3, 2017
To: Members of the Harvard Community

Fr: Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program at Harvard Law School (HIRC)

Re: Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweepsAs you may have heard, there have been nationwide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeting people living in areas that have designated themselves as ‘sanctuary cities.’ The sweeps have resulted in several hundred arrests across the country, and it is believed that approximately 50 people were arrested in Massachusetts. We have information that one person in Boston was arrested, but we do not know of anybody... Read more about Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps