Two UMass Medical School hires caught in immigration limbo
Two prospective UMass Medical School hires have been caught in the immigration ban.
Two post-doctorate hires at the UMass Medical School who were expected to start work within the next month are among those caught in the limbo of the federal immigration ban.
The prospective research lab workers, both now in Iran, have applied for visas but are caught in a process that has been put on hold for 90 days, said Jennifer Berryman, the school's vice chancellor for communications.
President Trump's immigration ban seeks to bar entry to the United States by those from seven countries in the Middle East and Africa. UMass Medical School has 15 employees from each of the seven countries listed in the ban: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Berryman said there isn't much the school can do while legal challenges to the ban play out. The school has an immigration services office to help coordinate any necessary paperwork for employees, she said.
The medical school isn't the first in Worcester to have someone affected by the ban.
A Worcester Polytechnic Institute student from Iran, Benham Partopour, was briefly unable to get into Massachusetts until finally getting a flight into Boston, MassLive reported earlier this month. WPI has 35 students from the immigration ban's seven affected countries.
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