The status of a foreign Hiatt Career Center employee has raised questions about the University's policy on sponsoring green card applications for staff. Brandeis currently only sponsors the applications of tenured professors or senior staffers, according to Rusmir Music, Hiatt's assistant director of experiential programs. Music could be required to return to his home country of Bosnia and Herzegovina because of this policy.

Music has a H1-B Visa, which is given to temporary workers in positions that require specialized knowledge acquired by completing a specific track of higher education, according the United States State Department's Web site.

The United States Department of Labor's Web site states that a foreign worker can hold an H1-B visa for a maximum of six years.

After that period of time, the employee must leave the United States for at least a year before reapplying. The only way to stay in the country is by applying for permanent residence, commonly known as applying for a green card. For Music, that Visa will run out in 2009.

Music came to Brandeis as a quad director in July 2003 and started his position at Hiatt in June 2006. Last May, he sent a memo to Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy and his supervisor at the time, asking that the University also sponsor the applications of staff members other than tenure-track faculty and senior-level staff members.

Music said he would have the same opinion on the case, even if it impacted somebody else.

"Brandeis says we are an institution founded on social justice, a place for all," Music said. "So how is it a place for all if faculty get one treatment and staff don't get that treatment?" He said he thought that a change in the green card policy would not be applicable to a large portion of the Brandeis community.

In response to his questions, Music said, the University referred to its existing policy but would not provide any detailed explanations. "I haven't really received a satisfying answer," he said. "Part of me understands why there is a policy, I just disagree with it."

David Elwell, the director for the international students and scholars office who has been advising Music on the issue, wrote in an e-mail that his office works "closely with all of our international employees to afford every consideration within the immigration law."

Elwell wrote that "the regulations are so strict that they do not take into account individual needs and situations."

Eddy and Hiatt Director Joseph DuPont said they could not comment because this is a personnel issue.

According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, foreigners can apply for permanent status based on family ties, employment sponsorship, or by the assertion that asylum is needed from persecution in one's own country. Citizens from countries with low immigration rates to the U.S. can enter a lottery to get a green card. In response to a question at last Sunday's Student Union Senate meeting, Music said that it had become more difficult to claim asylum from Bosnia after immigration rules were tightened after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He added that in general it would be hard for him to claim asylum if had not done so before, and that such a step could also mean that he would not be able to visit his family, who remain in Bosnia.

Music said that before he came to Brandeis, the University did not sponsor his visa. Eddy changed that policy after his advocacy and research, he said. Music said he was surprised that the University declined his request this time and that he was not aware of any possible negative outcomes.

At last Sunday's senate meeting, Music suggested that in the future, the University should warn individuals in his position that their stay at Brandeis will have to be temporary.

"I love this place," Music said. "This place has been literally my home." Music came to Brandeis after finishing his Masters degree at New York University in Humanities and Social Thought, after first coming to the country on a student visa in high school.

He said he believed the issue would mostly be a matter of the University working with him through the bureaucratic process.

As part of those efforts, he explained that the University might have to newly advertise his job and demonstrate that no other specifically qualified U.S. citizens can fill it. His research had turned up similarly successful cases at universities such as Wellesley College, he said.

Michelle Gillet, director of alumnae technology systems at Wellesley College and an immigrant from Canada gained permanent residency after she claimed specialized knowledge, Music said.

Gillet said her situation is likely less complex because of Canada's status as a neighboring country. She said, however, that both she and the human resources department at Wellesley had to invest a lot of work into the case.

"I really had to do a lot of work as an independent person to help [the human resources department] through the system. . I was the one asking them for all the paperwork. I was the one submitting things to the Department of Labor and then to United States Citizen and Immigration Services. I was the one asking, 'have we gotten a letter back?'"

Music, who has lived in the United States since the age of 17, emphasized that he has a strong community of friends in this country. If he returned to Bosnia, he said he might risk unemployment in spite of his U.S. education and might not be able to earn enough to repay his student loans.

"Bosnia is not the best place to go to. After the war, the country never really picked up," he said. He added that the country suffered from corruption.