En Route to Harvard Cubans Face Visa Delays

When Cuban microbiologist Rayner R. Díaz applied for a visa to enter the United States, he thought he would be a shoe-in.

His wife had received her visa a few weeks before without any trouble. And Díaz was no newcomer to the United States—he had already visited for a few months in 1999.

But when days and weeks of waiting for the State Department’s approval turned into months and years, Díaz couldn’t imagine what was causing the holdup.

“Everything on my application was perfect,” he said. “All they said was they were still processing.”

Finally, on Oct. 19 of this year, the State Department issued Díaz and two other Cuban scholars who had been invited to Harvard—Raúl D. Rodríguez and Jorge L. Maestre Mesa—the three-month visas that they had applied for in April and November of 2002.

Back in Cuba, the three scrambled to gather their belongings and rearrange their work plans to accommodate their unanticipated stay in Cambridge.

“We weren’t expecting to get these visas,” said Rodríguez. “I needed to modify my work [in Cuba] because I was planning to be here two and a half years before.”

On Tuesday, the three microbiologists presented summaries of their research on dengue and tuberculosis at a joint Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health forum.

Though those applications were eventually successful, experts say that applying for permission to come to the United States from Cuba has become increasingly difficult since Sept. 11, and Harvard academics say the policies are impeding their efforts to foster collaboration with colleagues in Cuba.

COLLABORATING WITH CUBA

In October, the State Department issued a blanket denial of visas to 65 Cuban scholars scheduled to attend a Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference in Las Vegas.

The department cited a U.S. policy that prohibits entry to the United States by Cuban government and Communist party employees as its reason for issuing the denial.

Three Harvard faculty who were attending staged a protest, holding a forum titled “Academic Freedom and Scholarly Exchange with Cuba” in place of a planned discussion of a book on the Cuban economy.

John H. Coatsworth, the director of Harvard’s Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, was one of the protesters. Coatsworth said U.S. policies continue to have an impact on academic work done between the two countries.

“I think it’s unfortunate because these kinds of delays make scholarly and scientific exchanges with Cuba extremely difficult,” said Coatsworth.

Visiting researchers Rodríguez, Maestre Mesa and Díaz were invited to Harvard through the Rockefeller Center’s Cuban Visiting Scholar Program, which was started 10 years ago in the hopes of increasing communication and improving relations between Cuba and the United States.

All three are employees of Cuba’s Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine, a division of the Cuban government’s Ministry of Health.

Rodríguez said that because Cubans are prohibited from purchasing chemicals and other materials from the United States, the opportunity to visit Harvard allows Cuban scientists to explore otherwise unavailable avenues of research.

“Because of this, cooperation with countries that have these possibilities is very important,” Rodríguez said.

In addition to allowing Cuban scholars access to Harvard’s resources, the visiting scholar program collaborates with the Institute of Tropical Medicine to send Harvard professors to teach and conduct research alongside Cuban academics.

Michael N. Starnbach, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School who has traveled to the Cuban institute, said the visa delays have “really prevented us from moving the collaboration forward.”

“There were specific techniques that they were hoping to learn and apply to our studies,” he said.

BORDER CONTROLS

State Department spokesman Lou J. Fintor said that the U.S. government’s “policy is to encourage people-to-people exchanges in Cuba and to advance the prospect of democratic transition.”

It makes exceptions to the general rule prohibiting travel by government officials or employees “on a case-by-case basis,” Fintor said, adding that he could not comment on specific cases.

Since Sept. 11, however, officials at Harvard said that standards have been tightened—causing unprecedented delays for scholars invited as visiting researchers.

“For Cuban nationals coming to the U.S., it has been very difficult—if not impossible—to get visas,” said Parker M. Emerson, a senior adviser to foreign students and scholars at the Harvard International Office (HIO).

After Sept. 11, the U.S. government imposed new restrictions on travel to and from a number of countries in efforts to tighten security. Cuba is currently on the State Department’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

With the assistance of the HIO, the three microbiologists applied for short-term visas a total number of four times, according to Rockefeller Center program associate Lorena G. Barberia.

“The first time, it wasn’t too hard,” Rodríguez said. “We thought it would be a little delayed...some people we knew got visas a few months before us and it wasn’t too hard for them.”

When no detailed explanation was given for the delays, faculty at the Rockefeller Center sent letters to four congressmen to ask for assistance.

Emerson speculated that a prime reason for the delays may have involved national security.

“All of these scholars are in public health and medical professions,” he said. “There are certain concerns now about certain fields of research after Sept. 11.”

The process of getting a visa averages about 30 days for people coming from countries that the United States has normal relations with, Emerson said. But he noted that visas from some countries, like Cuba, take longer, but typically not more than a few months.

The law currently allows Cuban citizens to stay indefinitely in the United States once they arrive on American soil, something Emerson said has caused a “legal quagmire.”

“It’s very difficult because of this intent to immigrate,” he said. “It’s hard to meet that double standard of saying ‘please give me this temporary visa even though I could end up moving there.’”

Maestre Mesa said he hopes that academic visits between Cuba and the United States will continue to grow in the future—and sees his visit as a portent of positive relations in the future.

“We are at the beginning of the solution of the problem,” said Maestre Mesa. “Our visits could facilitate scientific exchange between U.S. and Cuba.”

But Díaz said that he is unsure whether restrictions on Cuban scholars will be eased in the coming years.

“I don’t know how the future looks,” Díaz said. “There are periods of good relations, but it is always changing and you never know which period you are in.”