JSN & Independent ^ | April 28, 2011 | Heather Smathers
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 8:34:40 PM by FR_addict
– LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. – Harvard University officials are speaking out on the release of the immigration file on Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
Documents uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, show that Harvard University officials worked with the INS to deny Obama’s student visa extension.
An INS investigator, M.F. McKeon, wrote on June 8, 1964: “They (Harvard officials) weren’t very impressed with him and asked us to hold up action on his application until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him. They were apparently having difficulty with his financial arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.” Another memo by McKeon, dated May 19, 1964, says: “OBAMA has passed his general exams, which indicates on academic grounds he is entitled to stay around here and write his thesis; however, they are going to try to cook something up to ease him out. All three will have to agree to this, however. They are planning on telling him that they will not give him any money, and that he’d better return to Kenya and prepare his thesis at home.” Jeff Neal, a spokesman for Harvard University, disputed those allegations.
“While we cannot verify accounts of conversations that occurred nearly 50 years ago, a review of our existing files did not find any support for either the language or the implied intent described by the U.S. government official in the government documents,” Neal said.
Neal said that university documents predating the INS file, which was compiled between 1961 and 1965, indicate “the University’s Center for International Affairs faced serious constraints in providing financial support for research by international graduate students in Cambridge, and that these students were required to secure and demonstrate independent and sufficient sources of funding in order to remain on campus.”
Documents show Obama, Sr. was denied an extension of his student visa in July, 1964 and subsequently returned to Kenya. In 1965, Obama, Sr. attempted to return to the United States.
The INS file includes a letter from Harvard Registrar Robert Shenton written to Obama, Sr., on Nov. 16, 1965, that says the elder Obama had not registered his thesis title with the Department of Economics and therefore the university did not authorize his I-20, a document issued by a college for a student so that the student may obtain a student visa, for his return to the country.
“Under the circumstances, I could not consider issuing an I-20 to you until the following steps have been completed and the Economics Department approves your return,” Shenton wrote.
The steps required of Obama, Sr., included informing the Economics Department of the thesis title; informing the department of the status of his thesis; and sending the department any completed pages of the document. Neal said the university would confirm that Obama, Sr. was a student at Harvard from 1962-1964, and earned a Master’s degree in Economics.
Multiple attempts to get comment from the White House press office have not been returned.
No comments:
Post a Comment