A-14220335
Decided by District Director December 9, 1964
Application for waiver of the two-year-foreign-residence requirement of section 212(e), Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, is granted an exchange visitor alien, a research economist in the field of economic statistics and econometrics, whose continued presence in the United States is deemed in the public interest since the loss of his services through compliance with the requirement would be detrimental to a research program of official interest to the Department of Defense.
The subject, a single male, is a native and citizen of India and his last foreign residence was in that country. He entered the United States on June 22, 1960 as an exchange visitor, sponsored by the University of Chicago under Exchange Program P-I-100, and was granted extensions of stay as a participant in that program to March 30, 1965. Under the provisions of section 212(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, he is not eligible to apply for an immigrant visa or permanent residence in the United States until he has resided in the country of his nationality or last residence, or in another acceptable foreign country, for two years following departure from the United States, or has been granted a waiver of the two-year period of foreign residence.
The subject is a research economist in the field of economic statistics and econometrics. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1955 from the University of Andhra in India, his master's degree in statistics in 1957 from the University of Bombay, and his doctor's degree in economics in 1963 from the University of Chicago. He has been employed as an assistant professor of economics at Stanford University since September 1963 under a practical training program. The university is anxious to retain his services for an important teaching and research position in the Department of Economics, where he devotes a substantial portion of his time to research on an Office of Naval Research project on "efficiency of decision making in economic systems," a program of work concerned with several questions of considerable importance for Department of Defense planning and programming in research and engineering, and in procurement, and for the operation of the United States economy. His research bears particularly on the measurement of productivity growth and on the effects of technological progress and change on the expansion of employment opportunities and income distribution. In his teaching assignments he will be concerned with courses in economic statistics and econometrics and supervising the work of graduate students in econometric techniques. Operations research analysts trained in these fields are in critically short supply and greatly in demand by Defense offices and Defense contractors.
The Department of Defense is requesting that the subject be granted a waiver of the foreign residence requirement on the ground that the loss of his services through compliance with the requirement would be clearly detrimental to a research program of great official interest to that Department. The Secretary of State has reviewed the request and recommends that the waiver be granted. From the record it is concluded that the subject's continued presence in the United States is in the public interest. Eligibility for the waiver has been established.
ORDER: It is ordered that the two-year period of foreign residence required by section 212(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended be waived.