Padilla '06 receives one-year visa

A year after his status as an illegal immigrant triggered broader debate about the nation's immigration policy, Class of 2006 salutatorian Dan-el Padilla-Peralta has found at least a temporary solution to the difficulties raised by his lack of United States citizenship.

Padilla has obtained a part-time job assisting his former Princeton thesis adviser with project research, and with it an H-1B visa, which allows specially trained foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years. Padilla's visa is valid for one year, meaning he can legally travel between Oxford University, where he is doing graduate work as a Sachs scholar, and the United States, where his family lives.

Padilla has also received an ineligibility waiver, which allows people who are ineligible for a visa — in his case, because he is an illegal immigrant — to apply anyway.

"It is a great relief to have the visa in hand, and I am looking forward to working on the research project in Princeton," Padilla said in an email to his supporters yesterday.

At Princeton, Padilla was an accomplished classicist, praised by his professors and peers. He was also an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, brought to the United States by his mother when he was four years old. He came forward about his status in a front-page Wall Street Journal story last April, and his permanent status has remained in limbo.

Padilla's former thesis adviser, classics professor Harriet Flower, said that Padilla's new job will involve creating a database on Roman neighborhoods using archives Flower inherited from her dissertation adviser.

"The idea is he'll spend some time here, but then he will check material in the libraries in Oxford, so he'll just work a little bit on it every week," she said. "Obviously, because he's a student, this is something he'll be doing on the side. It's not like a full time job or anything."

Flower said she has been looking for someone to do the job since well before Padilla came along. "I was looking for somebody who knew the languages and who had some familiarity with the city and the different reference works one would have to use while working on the city of Rome," she said, "and he's just the perfect person."

"It's certainly in line with academic interests and with the topic that it looks like he's going to do his M.Phil. thesis at Oxford on," Flower added.

But Padilla's worries are far from over, his immigration lawyer, Steven Yale-Loehr, told supporters in an email yesterday. In a year, Padilla will have to apply for a new visa and ineligibility waiver.

For the moment, though, Flower said she believes Padilla's situation will continue to improve. "I think we all feel very optimistic about it, both from the academic and the personal side," she said.