
Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU - denzil_correa
http://cs.jhu.edu/~ccb/publications/letter-to-the-president.pdf
======
UnoriginalGuy
I wonder if this is one of those vague "security" problems. It seems like if
people get denied for normal stuff (overstaying, violating their visas, etc)
they're told and can at least fight it a little.

But when you get a black mark against you it seems like you get stuck in an
administrative blackhole where nobody is authorised to tell you WHY or they
themselves don't know.

It was the same way with the no-fly list for the longest time too, but because
that wound up impacting a few powerful Americans it was eventually sorted so
now you can at least fight it a little or do additional background checks to
get off of it.

The worst part is that these security black marks seem fairly easy to get:
family member or friend a "terrorist?" Share a name with someone "bad?" You're
now on it. And nobody you can actually talk to can either tell you why or has
the authority to remove you.

I would blame it on bureaucracy, but that is an easy out for a policy which is
partly intentional -- Americans don't want people visiting, working, or
studying on their shores. They have made that abundantly clear over the last
ten years.

~~~
robomartin
> Americans don't want people visiting, working, or studying on their shores.

This is utterly false and unfair. Please don't lump the entire US population
with a few ignorant morons who have not seen the world five miles outside
their home town. A quick look at our universities is proof enough that what
you are saying is incorrect. The last time I visited MIT it almost felt like I
was outside the US.

~~~
nostromo
Case in point: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
bo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
born_population_in_2005)

~~~
robomartin
Nothing like real data. The US has over three times more immigrants than any
other country.

I should also note it is my belief --my belief-- that most people in the US,
outside of certain groups, are for LEGAL immigration. Don't come here
illegally or with a student visa and then cry foul if not welcomed.

EDIT: the reference to student visas is about using them illegally to get in
and then stay. It is NOT about not allowing students with proper visas to come
in and study.

~~~
microarchitect
What's this about a student visa?

A student visa is a completely legal way of entering the US.

PS. Post the Boston bombings the immigration officials at the port of entry
are _required_ to verify valid student status before letting students (F1 visa
holders) into the US. This means the chances of people entering the country
illegally through a student visa are slim to none.

~~~
GauntletWizard
It's fairly common to come in on a "Student" visa to study at a community
college or take night courses while also holding a full-time job. It's also
common to skip the facade entirely - Use visa to gain entry, take job on
forged credentials, stay past expiration. The student visa does allow the
holder to work, but it is intended to be secondary to the education, and
history has shown that it is not.

~~~
microarchitect
This is not as easy you make it sound. First, when entering the US, the
immigration officials verify whether student status is valid using the SEVIS
database. Second, all changes to student status _must_ be reported to the
SEVIS database by the school. If the school finds out that a student is doing
unauthorized work, or if they find that the student's academic progress is
unsatisfactory (likely if they are working full-time) they are _required_ to
terminate student status and report this to SEVIS.

The generic issue of using forged credentials to get an unauthorized job is
applicable to any visa. And if I wanted to overstay my visa, it would be dumb
of me to choose a visa that was as carefully tracked and monitored as as the
F1 visa.

------
devon_air
I can understand what he's feeling as i'm in a very similar situation.

I was offered a job by a San Francisco-based startup in January. I applied for
a visa at the local US embassy, the interview went fine and the consular
officer said she was happy to approve it but that I had been flagged for an
additional background check which should take about two weeks.

Five months later and i'm still stuck in "Administrative Processing". All
enquiries have come back with a blanket "matter of national security, we can't
give any more information" cover. It's extremely frustrating. What makes it
even worse is just the incompetence of it all. I have been going back and
forth to the US for nearly ten years to see family pretty much every summer
without a problem, why am I only now subject to an extremely lengthy
background check?

My wife quit her job and we gave up our house in anticipation of our move and
we've effectively been in limbo since.

If anything, the way we've been treated has made me never want to step foot in
the US again.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, it's not recommended to quit the job before you're sure you can go
(securing the visa, etc)

I'm not blaming you, but visas have a non trivial chance of being denied

------
Mithaldu
The one thing I'm taking home from that letter is this:

    
    
        the embassy called him back to say that they had found 
        the problem. They said that if he came in, they would fix 
        it. Instead of fixing it, they stamped CANCELED across 
        his student visa without explaining what was wrong, and 
        refused to answer any questions as to why.
    

In short: The american embassy has no compunctions whatsoever to lie to
citizens of other countries.

For me as citizen of another country, this means that i will need to treat
anything any representative of the US-american government says, no matter how
high, or more importantly, low they are on the totem pole, is highly subject
and likely a lie.

~~~
piqufoh
This part is breathtakingly bad, but also largely subjective - we may never
know what they _really_ said...

~~~
johnyzee
If only we had records...

~~~
balabaster
1). LOL 2). They did fix it - they stamped cancelled on a visa the guy
(allegedly) shouldn't have. Fixed. Seems to me, that's the American way, no?
:P

------
untog
As an immigrant in the US, watching HN lately has been enlightening.
Absolutely none of this is new- and it's also almost entirely unrelated to
PRISM. Despite the fact that tech companies have been struggling with insane
visa rules for years, it's only _now_ that we start posting about individual
injustices, now that we can file it under the banner of _" government bad"_?

~~~
piqufoh
Why would this be unrelated to PRISM? As this guy doesn't know what he's
accused of, and we have no idea what PRISM is looking for, assuming they're
unrelated is as fallacious as assuming they are related.

~~~
army
This sort of stuff has been happening forever. I'm sure if you found some
people who were international students in the 80s or 90s they would have
similar stories about capriciousness with regards to student visas.

The rules basically say that embassy official should only give out student
visas if they are confident that the student meets the terms of the visa,
particularly that they have no intent to overstay or permanently immigrate to
the U.S. I.e. the default is not granting the visa, rather than granting the
visa.

The rules are bizarre: while you're on a non-immigrant visa you have to prove
that you have no intent to immigrate or seek immigrant status, yet ultimately
many people will seek green cards. Indeed, there is plenty of talk that the
U.S. should actively seek to encourage international students to stay
permanently, while at the same time the rules say that visas shouldn't be
granted to international students who might possibly be considering staying
permanently.

~~~
jisaacstone
Yes and it explicitly says that visa applicants are guilty until proven
innocent.

------
weego
Are we going to trawl up and link every single case of someone being denied
re-entry to the US? It's just getting rather tedious.

Though as the constant karma farming off similarly tedious and usually poorly
researched and written blog posts of the last week continues unabated perhaps
I am in a minority of readers who gets their news from decent sources and
likes to come to HN for interesting technical articles.

~~~
davidw
I think HN is seriously at risk of having jumped the shark for good. This NSA
thing blew the lid off - the front page is completely full of articles about
politics, with more each day about all kinds of different things.

I suppose things may settle down again - they have after other big events,
but... I worry, I worry.

(And for the record, for those who conflate not wanting to see every article
about this with not caring about it - I care about it deeply)

~~~
Zigurd
The PRISM scandal remains a threat to US tech businesses. Long after it fades
from HN, it will be a drag on growth. Since government credibility will be
hard to repair, a big part of the solution is likely going to be stronger
technical measures against any kind of snooping.

~~~
davidw
I do think it's relevant, and not some completely off-topic political thing.
However, it's given way to a bunch _more_ politics - people denied entry to
the US, "there are nukes in the netherlands", and so on, and filled the front
page, crowding out pretty much everything else.

I just get a feeling that this is a turning point for the site, but only time
will tell.

------
lmgftp
Their decision was probably based in some way (assuming it's based on
available information, which is admittedly risky) in his marriage to a foreign
national while expressing interest in moving to the states, and the embassy's
reluctance to chance him violating his visa permissions and in some way moving
here with his wife in a permanent resident-alien w/o a visa type manner.

Not claiming to know anything special, but if that really is the only
perturbed variable, it most likely hinged on that. Or familial ties that are
somehow inscrutable. All conjecture, but I find these single cases to be
ridiculous, because there are competent individuals in government who oft do
what they're supposed to, even if the whole government mechanism appears
corrupt and broken. Most likely there was a legitimate reason, and of course
we only have one side of the story here, by an associate professor and his PhD
student.

~~~
lanaius
I have been told by other foreign graduate students that getting married in
another country (possibly even married at all) violates that student visa
agreements. One girl is French and marrying an American, she was told that if
she goes to France to have a wedding ceremony that she would not be allowed
back in to America. This sounds exactly like what happened to this student.
It's shameful and bizarre, but it appears like these are the rules however
poorly they are communicated (my friend had NO idea as the university filled
out her visa application and did so incorrectly 4 years ago).

~~~
yardie
> marrying an American, she was told that if she goes to France to have a
> wedding ceremony that she would not be allowed back in to America.

My cursory reading of the USCIS website tells me her fiance would need to
apply for a K1,K3 visa. Being married she is entitled to rights the typical J
visa holder does not have.

This is where the immigrant/nonimmigrant visa process breaks down. USCIS makes
it painfully expensive to change a nonimmigrant visa into an immigrant visa. I
guess what they want to avoid is having people jump the greencard queue, and
marriage moves you right to the top, by flying in on a tourist visa, find a
willing US citizen to marry.

~~~
shabble
A 'marriage of convenience'[1] in that sort of situation is typically treated
as fraud, with potentially high penalties (deportation for the incoming, jail
for the citizen). I've heard from more than one recently married couple that
they've been separated and intensively interviewed about their personal lives,
marriage, and backgrounds. IIRC one was returning to the US, and another was
entering Canada. In both cases one of the couple was a native citizen.

If that were the actual reason, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a standard
form letter or actual reason for denial. I suppose 'Go Away, We Can't Talk
About It' might get used in marginal cases or when the appropriate authority
can't be bothered doing the actual research.

Or they just lost at Top100 Terrorist Names Bingo.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_of_convenience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_of_convenience)

------
outworlder
Well, this "problem" with sort out itself, eventually. Taking the ridiculous
border controls, the economic situation, disregard of human rights (specially
for foreigners), it means that the US is rapidly becoming an unattractive
place to work, study and even go on vacation. Before long, you won't have many
people trying to get in.

Guess where the entrepreneurs, scientists and highly skilled workers will go?
Hint: not the US. What that means for the future of the country is left as an
exercise to the reader.

I can't believe that in 2013 we are still worried about which piece of land
someone were when he got out of the womb.

~~~
twoodfin
_Before long, you won 't have many people trying to get in._

Wanna bet?

~~~
outworlder
Sure! Are there any reliable sources of immigration statistics?

The effects might take a while to be felt. Some green card categories have a
backlog of more than a decade. Tourism might be easier to measure.

~~~
cunac
the fact that H1B yearly quota is used in hours ?

------
johnnyg
Unless you walked through Alaska on a land bridge, you too are an immigrant.
We can either embrace the strength of a democracy to turn the huddled masses
into a productive force for good or we can choose to turn inward. Guided by
fear, we are making the wrong choice.

~~~
gilgoomesh
> Unless you walked through Alaska on a land bridge, you too are an immigrant.

Uh... isn't that _also_ immigration?

~~~
morganwilde
To extend this line of thinking - you are (possibly) not an immigrant only if
you were born in Africa - our place of origin.

~~~
astrodust
Even "origin" is a misnomer here. It's not clear if the neanderthals were
wiped out, or simply assimilated. Many were already living in modern-day
Europe.

------
jdmitch
...not sure what sort of "moral debt" (second bullet point) Omar had to the
country - is there some reason he should have had to contribute anything to
the US economy? Its not like the military where you commit to extra years of
service for the financial inducements attached to further study. He's probably
already contributed more than most Americans just in his research during the
years of his PhD. As an American doing a PhD in the UK, I don't feel I owe a
"moral debt" to contribute to the economy here when I am done.

~~~
muyuu
Yep, but why would you want to live in the US now? Just look at it.

Stay with us, mate.

~~~
krapp
Where do you live, where the government either isn't cooperating with the US
or its allies or else doing its own spying and censorship, and isn't a
corrupt, money-hungry beast? I might just pack my own bags and go myself.
Assuming there are jobs for foreigners.

~~~
muyuu
IMO the US is with China a step ahead everybody else Russia included. They
also have the resources for this and control over the main companies
spearheading these developments. Couple with a shadow federal government with
absolute power, and the most sedated, naive, "cooperative" and docile
population in existence.

It's really a scary place to live. Surely IT jobs do pay well there though.

~~~
krapp
Just because the United States happens to be better at it at the moment,
doesn't mean other governments aren't complicit or wouldn't jump at the chance
for total information awareness themselves.

~~~
muyuu
It's a good reason to avoid the US now.

In the long term, we're all dead.

------
kohanz
Perhaps because recent events have me grasping for sources of positive news
from Americans, I am touched by the sincerity and tone of this letter. I would
much rather believe that the attitude expressed in this letter is that of most
Americans.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Is this most Americans? Yes it is. Americans paid $250 grand for this "Omar,
PhD" but their purchase was lost in shipping. It's time to start yelling at a
few parcel carriers.

------
OldSchool
He sounds like a brilliant student. However does anyone find it the least bit
noteworthy that the US government is paying for foreign citizens' tuition and
stipends while many of its own citizens are forced to go deeply in debt?

~~~
xanmas
PhD students, especially in the sciences, don't pay tuition.

~~~
genwin
Nice to know my taxes pay for the lofty education of people who may have no
intention of working in my country.

~~~
rbehrends
If you don't want them, other countries will be more than happy to take those
unwanted Ph.D. students off your hands.

Ph.D. students don't pay tuition because the remuneration they get for their
work is part tuition waivers, part money. If they do not work for the
university and are not eligible for tuition waivers, they have to pay tuition
instead (both foreigners and US Americans).

In practice, they are basically inexpensive (for their qualifications)
temporary employees in teaching and research; what they get out of it is a
degree.

~~~
genwin
If they are a net benefit to US taxpayers even when they plan to leave the US,
that's a good point. We should give them a green card in advance though, plus
ask their intention. There's got to be plenty of supply of worthy foreign
students who intend to stay here. Taxpayer money is surely being left on the
table if we are educating foreign students regardless of their intention of
staying.

------
maguirre
This article strikes home for me. I came to the US to go to college, while
here I got great grades, a job and eventually married a US Citizen and
obtained citizenship myself. Due to the fact that I followed the rules My
sister (Medical Doctor in our country of origin) would get harassed and
accused of wanting to stay ("like your brother" they would say) every time she
came to visit me (For the record she has never overstayed her visas).
Eventually when it was time to renew her tourist visa she was denied and told
to never set a foot at the US embassy again.

Quite sad really but there is no winning against USCIS.

------
lquist

      America when will you be angelic? 
      When will you take off your clothes? 
      When will you look at yourself through the grave? 
      When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? 
      America why are your libraries full of tears? 
      America when will you send your eggs to India? 
      I'm sick of your insane demands.
    

From Ginsberg's "America"
([http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html](http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html))

~~~
cema
Uh... what?

------
slaxman
Wow! This really saddens me. But I experienced something similar. When I got
married a couple of years ago (in India) I really wanted my one cousins (who I
was really close to) to come to my wedding. Unfortunately, his lawyers advised
him no to come stating that given the current state of affairs, his reentry to
US might be jeopardized. This is in spite of the fact that he had lived in US
for over a decade and paid huge taxes during that time.

------
amasad
The bit about the flight staff tearing up his ticket is a real problem. Flight
staff act like they're Border Control. I'm a Jordanian with an O1 and they
usually give me hard time when I try to board a plane to the states. I once
almost missed my flight because they made me buy a ticket back in the same
year, even-though my visa was valid for three years.

~~~
hpagey
According to my understanding, for passport control flights, the airlines are
heavily fined and have to bear the cost of return flight if a passenger is
denied entry.

------
pfortuny
When the US has access to approx 10 billion 'metadata' from Jordanian citicens
(probably more, I am quoting from memory), it means it has access to ALL their
communications.

So if this poor man just happened to have the wrong social graph...

"We found the problem with your visa [silence]".

The [silence] means: there should be a 'CANCELLED' stamp on it. Why bother?

------
reccles
Having been through the system I can probably guess what he did wrong. F1
status requires that you show no intent to stay. If he had declared that
Microsoft was sponsoring an H1B prior to re-entry and we as attempting to
enter with a F1, then he broke the F1 rules.

If you break any rules you are pretty much SOL.

------
genwin
My taxes pay for the expensive university education of foreigners, without
guarantee they can stay? Great.

~~~
astrodust
Many, if not most developed countries do this. Don't be such a jackass.

The idea is that these students enrich the university, and there's a chance
they'll stay on as professors.

Billions are spent chasing foreign students that can throw a football and you
chose to save your rage for this?

~~~
genwin
It's hardly being a jackass to wish that my taxes weren't wasted, in any way
whatsoever.

~~~
astrodust
It's not like you're footing the bill for all foreign students single-
handedly. There's this thing called society. You're part of it.

If you think your taxes are being "wasted" on foreign students, as if those
freeloaders are being forced on institutions like MIT by the government, take
it up with your representative or senator.

The academic world is bigger than the US. It might shock you but there are
some very capable students outside those borders and MIT would very much like
to have them doing research at MIT rather than somewhere else.

~~~
genwin
Then let MIT pay for that, not me, when there's no likelihood the student will
be paying me back in the form of US taxes. The research leads to patents that
MIT gets compensated for, not me. My taxes are likely being wasted here,
working against the society I support. It doesn't matter if it's only a dime
of mine since all waste is bad and adds up to a lot. No I'm not going to take
it up with my representative, falling on deaf ears. I'm going to make my point
here on HN instead, where it belongs.

~~~
astrodust
So should we be writing checks to Germany when a German-educated person comes
over to the US and starts a business? After all, Germany should be compensated
for their loss, right?

If an American chooses to move to Singapore to work for an international bank,
then maybe they should be forced to pay back the subsidy on their education,
right?

Here's the thing: Education is not a waste of money. It costs almost nothing
to host a Ph.D. student, there just aren't that many of them. It would take
_tens of thousands_ of Ph.D. students to add up to the cost of a single F-35
fighter jet.

Investments aren't about a guaranteed return, they're all about probabilities.
I'm pretty sure that MIT's investment in graduate students, including the
small number of guest foreign students, pays enormous dividends in terms of
research and prestige.

Also if you can name _one_ Ph.D. student that's been given a signing bonus
that's anywhere near the kind of money thrown at football players, please do.
If you want to know where money's being wasted, it's on lavish stadiums,
enormous scholarships, and all the associated pageantry.

Don't think you're the only "taxpayer". Virtually everyone who's ever set foot
in the United States is a taxpayer in some form. I know I've paid my fair
share of sales taxes just visiting.

If you want to cut funding to MIT so that it becomes a shell of what it is
today, you're entitled to that opinion. Just don't complain if that happens
and over time the US becomes completely uncompetitive, full of people with
obsolete or inadequate education, reduced to having to import talent wholesale
like Dubai.

~~~
genwin
Can you knock off the straw man arguments? Not wanting my taxes to be wasted
isn't a valueless point just because I'm one of many taxpayers, or because the
US doesn't compensate Germany when a German-educated person moves to the US,
or because education is worth money to someone, or because money is wasted
elsewhere, etc.

If the US taxpayers' investment in foreign students who may not end up staying
here is a net benefit to US society and that benefit has been reasonably
maximized, then I'm all for it. Otherwise I'm not. When a foreign student is
given a nice education at taxpayer expense without so much as granting them a
green card on arrival to increase the odds they'll stay here, I suspect that
taxpayer money is being wasted, even if the return of educating foreign
students is positive on net.

~~~
astrodust
They're doing research in the US for a US university that collaborates
directly with US corporations. What more do you want from the deal?

~~~
genwin
I'd want the universities to fund the students out of their $multi-billion
endowments, rather than get my kids to work longer to pay for it.

------
pseut
This sort of event is shameful and near-indefensible but not new. If you're a
foreign grad student in the US, be aware that this sort of thing happens all
the time, and even trivial visa issues take a long time to resolve.

------
ekm2
What is a foreign graduate student in the US supposed to learn from this?

That he or she should not fall in love or marry an American while in the US?

    
    
            or

That if this happens he or she should not go back to renew the visa ?

~~~
smackfu
That every time you leave the country, there is a risk you may not be let back
in.

------
peripetylabs
He probably pissed off some member of the royal family, whom are more
important to the US than intellectuals.

------
bernardlunn
the best data i can find is here
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
bo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
born_population_in_2005)

------
mmmelissa
What a top notch grad supervisor to write a letter like that.

