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Mozilla Employee Denied Entry To the United States (gizmodo.com)
Reader Artem Tashkinov writes: Daniel Stenberg, an employee at Mozilla and the author of the command-line tool curl, was not allowed to board his flight to the meeting from Sweden—despite the fact that he'd previously obtained a visa waiver allowing him to travel to the US. Stenberg was unable to check in for his flight, and was notified at the airport ticket counter that his entry to the US had been denied. Although Mozilla doesn't believe that the incident is related to Trump's travel ban, the incident stirred fears among international tech workers, who fear they'll miss out on work and research opportunities if they're not allowed to travel to the US. The situation even caught the eye of Microsoft's chief legal officer Brad Smith, who tweeted at Stenberg to offer legal assistance.
He does not, but he needs an ESTA registration (visa waiver) and his application seems to have been retrospectively rejected.
He doesn't have a visa, he has a visa waiver (ESTA). Anyone who doesn't need a visa to visit the US needs to pay $14 to fill in a web form that contains the same information that you'll give to the airlines and which the airlines are required by law to provide to the US government. In return, this data is entered into a database. It specifically does not grant you permission to enter the US (though you can't enter the US without paying the $14). This replaces the old green visa waiver form that you used to have to fill in on the plane prior to landing.
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Even if you are eligible for a visa waiver, you have to get an electronic authorisation to travel from the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation.
I.e. you have to pass a check to have your visa waived, before you can try to have your visa waived, and your approval can be withdrawn at any time. Neither ESTA nor even a visa is reliable, you are still at risk of being refused (and losing your money on hotels, flight tickets, your business, travel, or study opportunity, etc). The USA (and some other countries) cannot be trusted to be reliable in this, the USA in particular.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Note that his ESTA was approved, then rescinded. Someone specifically went to withdraw his approval after it was issued. That is not lazy non approval, that is malicious retroactive denial.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
That they are. Take a look at the race baiting article from ProRepublica they published that was mentioned here a few hours ago.
Gizmodo is working it's way up there with Salon, Mother Jones, MIc, and a few others. Ars Technica is getting a bit political these days too.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Get past all the political mumbo jumbo that has nothing to do with the situation and read the last sentence, which comes from a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson: "“Please know that we process 1.2 million people every day—around 700 are denied entry for various reasons. Having an approved ESTA does [not] guarantee a foreign national free entry into the US All travelers including those coming from visa waiver countries must clear all 60 grounds of inadmissibility.”
So, this guy is one of 700 people who are daily denied entry for NOTHING related to Trump's travel ban, but because he has a Twitter account and is a Mozilla employee, "AHHHH!!! TRUMP TRAVEL BAN!!! AHHHH!!! IT'S GOING TO GET EVERYBODY!!! AHHHH!"
In other news, water is wet.
Even if Sweden was one of them, Stenberg has a clear relationship with a US Company. So the real question is, does Stenberg have a valid work visa? Most of the people I hear being denied entry into the US are denied because they had a paying US gig and got the wrong kind of visa
I think the summary and article make it clear that he doesn't have a work visa; he was trying to enter through the visa waiver program. And I agree that the lack of work visa is probably the issue--you can enter through the VWP or on a B-1 business visitor visa to attend a business meeting if you're employed by a foreign company and are not being paid by a US company. But Stenberg's a (presumably paid) employee of Mozilla. IANAIL and all that, but my understanding is that since he's being paid by a US company, coming to the US for a meeting with that company is considered work, and he's no eligible for VWP or a B-1 visa.
No, security *theater* guarantees collateral damage.
Just as the Muslim^H^H refugee^H^H travel ban is nothing more than pandering to his slaw-jawed supporters, this is almost certainly a fuck-up by some over-eager Customs agent who discovered an excuse to wield a little power. Actual security has nothing to do with either situation.
You have basically assumed other people's income is yours to decide what to do with.
And liberals don't like sending half their taxes to the military, but you don't hear them whining about tyranny every goddamned second. Some of your taxes are gong to go to things you don't like, that's what civilization looks like. Man the fuck up already.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
It has already had an impact.
For those who won't bother to follow the link, Mark Nottingham said of QUIC meetings:
2) We won't hold any further interim meetings in the US, until there's a change in this situation. This means that we'll either need to find suitable hosts in Canada or Mexico, or our meeting rotation will need to change to be exclusively Europe and Asia.
And this isn't that big a deal. When I worked for ATI (Canadian company) as part of one of the US-based subsidiaries, we all had to get Canadian work visas. Well, initially no one did that and it was fine, just say the trip was for "business meetings". But then we had one guy that was going there a ton, as he now had direct reports in Canada, and I guess the Canadian immigration folks took notice. Pretty sure he was denied entry, after which we all had to get work visas.
Whatever one thinks about the travel ban, this is almost-certainly 100% unrelated. Someone just made a stink for political reasons. They've every right to do that, but we should not read more into this than some guy was denied entry.
Actually, you DO hear them whining about this endlessly....
No, you really don't, because liberals aren't strict constructionists. The default liberal attitude is compromise, whereas the default conservative position is more doctrinaire. Also, since we're talking about yanks here, your average US liberal is actually pretty OK with at least a certain amount of defense spending if only because of the greater good it does in promoting global stability. (Whether their assumptions in this are correct is another issue entirely.)
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Bullshit.
The B-1 is only required if you cannot enter under the visa waiver program. Sweden is part of the visa waiver program.
Info about the B-1:
https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/b-1-temporary-business-visitor
There is actually a wide-scope already in play for "business" and the US immigration department has a fair amount of information on what you can conduct as business under the visa waiver program.
Info about visa waiver:
https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-visitors-business/wb-temporary-business-visitor-under-visa-waiver-program
If you want to know what activities are allowed under visa waiver, then let this immigration lawyer tell you:
"Traveling and working with the Visa Waiver Program generally means engaging in business activities other than the actual performance of labor. To work in the United States, you will need a visa specifically for that purpose.
The visa waiver program is appropriate for the following types of persons/activities: Selling, Voluntary Work, Service Engineer, Speaker/Lecturer, Conference, Researcher, Business Venture, Medical Elective, Telecommuters."
In many/most western states (specifically, Colorado & Utah, but I think a few others, too, including Oregon), it's actually *illegal* to collect rainwater, under the bizarre legal theory that someone further "downstream" already owns that water. In theory, if someone 200 miles away could convince a jury that your act of paving a formerly-vacant lot deprived them of $22,719 worth of water by causing it to evaporate instead of permeating into the ground, they could probably sue you *and* press charges for grand theft.
I suspect that laws like those still exist because the current owners of that water have paid so much to buy those rights, any state that tried changing the law would get bankrupted by inverse-condemnation lawsuits arguing diminished value. So ancient laws written 150 years ago enforce absurd rules today that nobody can actually un-do and fix.