From “Taking Liberties,” an article by David Cole in The Nation, October 4, 2004, http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041004&s=cole:
Are we really barring Muslim intellectuals from the country even if they have no proveable connection to terrorist organizations? What’s next? You can’t enter the U.S. if you’re pro-choice on abortion? How did we come so far along this path without noticing?
Yeah, and they’ve been enforcing the “press visa” thing too, which is beyond absurd.
But hey, when you vote for the Enabling Act, this is what you get…
That I haven’t even heard of. How does it work?
It works this way…
You pick up a revolver, aim it at your own foot, and squeeze the trigger. That’s what it amounts to.
Here is a defense of the State Department’s revocation of Ramadan’s visa by Daniel Pipes, a well-known writer on the Middle East and founder of “Campus Watch”, the “anti-treason” organization that posted an online “blacklist” of academics who were accused of being insufficiently pro-US or excessively pro-Islamist. Pipes thinks that Ramadan’s visa ought to be denied because he’s too soft on Islamist extremism and has suspiciously close ties to some people who are linked with terrorism.
And here is an article (in English) on Ramadan’s rebuttal (in French) of Pipes’ accusations.
The blatant stupidity of the US administration and complete lack of knowledge about what moves outside the USA was once again so obvious that it makes you wonder how on earth they even manage to breath.
And what I said already so frequently is once agin confirmed and is endorsed by the author of the article behind your link
Pipes a “scholar”? It would make me laugh if it was not such an insult.
Salaam. A
BrainGlutton, you know about the visa exeption program for foreigners coming to the US from treaty-member countries? (For example, Japanese people don’t need a special visa to go to the US, and vice versa.)
But that doesn’t count, amazingly, for members of the press, who are required to have a special visa. Yeah, in the Land of the Free.
Here’s a cite. You can find more. This was justly given lots of neg-pub.
I thought the Secretary of State had wide powers to refuse visas or entry to any alien if he believed that their presence was not in the interest of the United States.
Technically, that describes George H. W. Bush. If he leaves the country, will W. Bush not let him back in?
I honestly do not know whether that is true or not; but in the instant case, Ramadan was excluded based on a very new and little-known statutory provision in the USA PATRIOT Act, as recounted in the OP.
A dismayed and concerned Canadian speaks:
What the *&%%? are you guys doing down there? You’re shooting yourselves in the foot day after day, and it’s just not stopping!
You do realise that it’s a big world, don’t you? And that information, innovation, and tourism will easily go elsewhere if they aren’t welcome in your land?
Every time you exclude a field of research due to ideology, the rest of the world is happy to accomodate the research teams.
Every time a tourist is hassled at the border by arbitrary and inconsistently-applied procedures, every time some new requirement (fingerprints? exit checks?) is applied, it makes it more and more likely that that tourist and his income will go elsewhere for the next holiday.
Every time someone restricts public protest or intellectual discussion, it makes your words about the Land of the Free appear as mere hype to fool the gullible.
Every time some corporate team manipulates the copyright or patent system to reduce innovation, stifle competitors, and increase present profit, it makes all your words about fair competition on a level playing field look like misleading marketspeak to fool a naive observer.
Every time you do not let your own election mechanisms be independently verifiable, you make your promotion of freedom abroad less believable.
And even if each actual incident of this type is revealed and repaired, the damage to your image is done. People less and less believe that you are doing what you say you are doing, and more and more look to your actions alone.
Even if you didn’t care what others think of you, this is a bad tactical move, politically. It robs you of political manoeuvring room. You don’t get as many chances to say ‘trust us’ when doing the nasty tasks that somethimes have to be done.
And it’s not like you don’t have a noble heart. The United States of America at its best has a spirit that can transform the whole world for the better. All around the world, people have fought and died for freedom and opportunity and the hope of a better future, the things that you say you cherish.
But more and more it seems like you yourselves have lost the way to your own future.
If it wasn’t for the X-Prize and last week’s private space launch from Mojave, I’d think you’d completely forgotten what it is to step over the problems of today and truly look to the possibilities of the future.
We, the world, need a strong healthy United States of America.
Show us what you truly can be! Return to your dreams! Inspire the world as you once did!
The alternative is tragedy.
Apparently, journalists must ask for a special visa to come in the US. I learnt this recently, reading the story of a young journalist, working for some virtually unknown magazine (she didn’t come to enquire about some touchy issue, but about some random uninteresting stuff, I forgot what exactly) , who wasn’t aware of it, and who genuinely answered “journalist” when asked by the immigration. To her total surprise, she ended up detained for 2 days before being shipped back to France for lack of this special visa (french people normally don’t need a visa to enter the US).
It happened earlier this year to someone who is very well known in Australia, Molly Meldrum:
Go home, Molly, you’re not a hit here, says US security
Not only is Australia a visa-waiver country, and not only is Australia fighting on the same side in the “War against Terrorism”, but Molly had previously visited the US without needing a visa to interview people.
Should a working journalist be using a tourist visa? That doesn’t seem appropriate.
Australia has a visa category for “Media and Film Staff”.
Absolutely true, and I honestly don’t see what the big deal is. Nationals of Visa Waiver-subject countries are not required to obtain visas in most circumstances for business or pleasure trips lasting 90 days or less. They are, however, *and have always been *, required to obtain visas in advance if they are coming to the U.S. to engage in productive employment; a ‘business trip” in this circumstance would be for something like a meeting, a conference, etc., not something which is the essence of the person’s job.
(And yes, this restriction applies regardless of the source of the journalist’s payment, i.e. even if they are working for a non-U.S. publication. Journalist visas are pretty simple to obtain; basically, the Consulate just wants a brief letter form the organization you work for, stating that you are coming to the U.S. to work in your professional capacity.)
Info from the U.S. Embassy in Paris on requirements for journalist visa:
http://www.amb-usa.fr/CONSUL/niv_visajm.htm
I have dealt with the head of the nonimmigrant visa section in Paris many times, and she is always very helpful in expediting cases if necessary. And what’s even more rare for a consular official, she returns phone calls, usually the same day.
I agree that they shouldn’t have started enforcing a requirement out of the blue, especially one which has the potential to create this much disruption for an important sector of the public, but sheesh, how difficult is it to fill out a couple of sheets of paper? You’d think they were asking for journalists’ firstborn children or something.
Eva Luna, U.S. Employment-Based Immigration Paralegal
Why not? You only need a work visa if you’re coming to the U.S. to work for an employer in the U.S. (presenting the possibility that you’ll be competing with Americans for jobs). But a foreign journalist is employed by a foreign publication. She offers no economic competition – only the threat of potential embarrassment of American public officials.
Oh, and by the way, ideological exclusion of foreigners was never gone; the U.S. has always had legal provisions to refuse admission to people whose presence in the U.S. is deemed to be adverse to its foreign policy interests. Doesn’t anyone remember the flap some years back about whether Yasser Arafat should be allowed to arrive in NYC to go to the U.N.?
I can’t remember how that one all turned out, but I do remember being all excited to see Ernesto Cardenal, the famous Nicaraguan poet, speak at my university. It never happened, however; he wasn’t able to obtain a visa, probably because he was a Communist, meaning that he favored the violent overthrow of the U.S. government (whether or not it was likely that he would ever do anything about it). The pen is mightier than the sword, indeed.
Bio of Ernesto Cardenal:
http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/surgery/cardenal3.html
Dangerous, no? I can see why we’d want to keep out a guy like that.
Not true. See my previous post. Any non-U.S. citizen or permanent resident coming to the U.S. to engage in productive employment needs an appropriate work visa. The location of the person’s employer and the source of payment are irrelevant.
And how do you figure she offers no economic competition, anyway? A French paper can’t hire a U.S.-based journalist?
Why? A foreigner with views “adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests” comes here and speaks publicly about them at a campus or something – where’s the harm? If I wanted to address a crowd and espouse such views, I would have a constitutional right to do it without government interference. Our political system is based on the assumption that political dissent is a good thing for civil society, regardless of its content.
Sure, if they want to open up a permanent Washington bureau, or something. But to cover just one story, why would they do anything but send one of their own French staff reporters?