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Afghan Girl Roboticists Denied US Visas (bbc.com)
Three anonymous readers share a similar report: An all-girl team of roboticists will watch their creations compete in a US competition via Skype after being denied visas to enter the country. President Trump recently ordered a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries, but Afghanistan was not included on the list. Teams from Iran, Sudan and Syria -- which are on the list -- did manage to enter the country. The six-member team watched their ball-sorting robot compete in Washington DC via a video link from their hometown of Herat, in western Afghanistan. "We still don't know the reason why we were not granted visas, because other countries participating in the competition have been given visas," Fatemah Qaderyan, 14, told Reuters.
Why does their gender matter? Quit being so sexist.
Welcome to the DeEnlightenment.
What an embarrassment this country is becoming.
Visitor visas are weird creatures. Even under ideal circumstances, with good jobs and excellent ties to their native country, about half of them are denied (or more) at certain embassies. It's entirely at the mercy of the consular officer, and this probably had nothing to do with the travel ban. It was probably a CO being skittish.
It is possible that the reason is unrelated to Thr Trump Ban. many times people from these particular type of shit-hole countries get a visa of one type or another and then just dissapear into an expat community.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
America doesn't have any balls these days.
If they ever read U.S. Tax Code, they will understand why.
Most likely the usual reasons: either, they didn't demonstrate that they had enough money to stay in the US, or there was doubt about their ability or desire to leave the US once granted entry. Same reason EU countries frequently deny entry.
After all, the US does seem to have difficulties removing people who overstay their visas or enter illegally.
>> The six-member team watched their ball-sorting robot compete in Washington DC via a video link from their hometown of Herat, in western Afghanistan
In related news, my company refused to fly my Indian overseas coders to the US for a week to watch the software they contributed to run for the first time on a monitor in the data center. I would think that fellow environmentalists would be happy that we didn't have to emit the carbon to ship a team of meatspace bodies halfway across the world.
So it has nothing to do with Trump's ban on those countries has it?
US immigration is a law unto itself and usually pretty arbitrary. I realise a lot of the world's problems are Trump's fault, but not all of them are.
Entry into a foreign country is not a right.
These girls did not have any of their rights violated. They applied for visas; they were declined. It happens all the time. It happens to foreigners applying for visas in the US; it happens to Americans applying for visas elsewhere.
In addition, their gender is irrelevant. This information has only been included to incite more outrage from those who feed off of left-wing identity politics.
There is no story here except for the one that professional victims and their allies are trying to create.
The fuck is wrong with you?
Supporting young roboticists is exactly the type of thing what Slashdot is all about.
Grow up.
Really? I thought slashdot was all about typos in teh summaries and misplaced rage from people who don't read the articles.
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So the 6 month total ban Obama put in place on any visa from Iraq never happened? Oh wait, you're about as wrong as Trump is orange.
The US armed forces have been fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan for 16 years. Many people in Afghanistan hate them and wish they were gone.
Military robotics is a leading-edge field.
Hmmmmm.
https://www.amazon.com/Gone-To...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
LOL... You have a good point there...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
...Then I saw little Tiffany. I'm thinking, y'know, eight-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of night with quantum physics books? She about to start some shit, Zed. She's about eight years old, those books are WAY too advanced for her. If you ask me, I'd say she's up to something...
Supporting young roboticists is exactly the type of thing what Slashdot is all about.
Well, we have these things called jokes. I realize it's hard to sense a sarcastic tone in written form, but being more explicit seems to ruin the delivery. I don't have any problem with them coming over here, and I tried to convey that with my second part by saying "on a more serious note..." but my guess is that you didn't get that far and just had a knee-jerk reaction to the first part.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Until somebody shows that the denial was based on Trump's "travel ban" why are we mentioning it?
NOTHING in the "travel ban" has anything to do with this. Visa's get denied all the time for all sorts of reasons, some good, some not so good. Somebody decided to deny this visa application by a non-US citizen and until we know why, how's this has anything to do with Trump's Executive Order?
Oh, I know... It's guilt by association... How dare ANY visa application get denied! Everybody has a right to come here! (NOT!)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Does anyone know how to make a policy that allows visits from legitimate gadget makers while perfectly screening out anyone who might make a bomb instead? Please post the details here.
Now she only knits sweaters.
It really gets tiresome repeating facts to the ignorant and shills who refuse to work with those facts.
When 90% of a the people following a particular Religion are not impacted by the travel moratorium, it is not "xenophobic" policy. Making such a claim is lazily disingenuous. "You are a racist" is not an argument. Even if it were true, the policy being debated may not be. It is failed logic called a fallacy.
Considering that the countries impacted are all either failed states or have governments who support terrorists and terrorist organizations, the policy purpose is obviously to address potential terrorism. While we may be able to argue the actual risks involved, you make that impossible with "more" ad hominem based on failed logic. "You are a racist and homophobe" is not an argument.
Lastly, Countries _ARE_ REQUIRED to control their borders. This is a well known fact and every single nation on Earth does exactly that, because without doing so you have no country. (See Tibet for an example). More lazy arguments based on faulty logic won't make that untrue. More ad homimen (you are a racist, homophobe, misogynist) is still not an argument and is a simply lazy and disingenuous. If you have doubts that countries in fact do need to control their borders, leave all your papers at home and try to enter Mexico, or China, or Russia, or Germany, or any other place you wish. You will be begging for your papers and demanding to see the US embassy in little time. Attempting in fact to rely on the nation that you are attempting to subvert and undermine with your lazy disingenuous arguments!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Travelers from a country not included in the travel ban can't enter the US and we have no idea why.
Has Slashdot resorted to printing articles simply to take up space?
Although denying these students visas accomplishes nothing in that respect.
Probably soured the entire team on the US is about all they accomplished with this dumb move.
They seem quite good at it - for them it is a matter of life and death.
http://www.haaretz.com/1.74329...
Their screening policies are viewed as necessary for survival and political correctness does not factor into their policies and procedures.
It's a *team* of girls. And, since the robot is made of a choice of parts from an explicit list, there's no hidden weapons in it.
ObDisclosure: my stepson's First team made it to the semi-finals a couple of years ago.
No, this is put "they're Muslims, we don't want them, we read their application the same way that the right-wing slashdotters read the story."
So, basically... we in America are afraid of school girls. Seems accurate.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Please TAKE A HIKE with your cherry-picked example for bleeding hearts, state-run BBC new service.
Liberals may have has few boundaries established for them by their parents, but I'm afraid their ignorance and lack of discipline cannot be allowed to prevent our entire country from establishing boundaries.
Please TAKE A HIKE with your cherry-picked example for bleeding hearts, state-run BBC new service.
Liberals may have had few boundaries established for them by their parents, but I'm afraid their ignorance and lack of discipline cannot be allowed to prevent our entire civilization from establishing boundaries.
And by "Liberals" I mean almost all "conservatives" as well. Our civilization is being raped from the inside.
To be fair, also typos in the commentaries.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Being an intelligent (young) woman is most decidedly a threat.
Yes, sadly, a threat to overstay their visas. Sadly, that is one of the criteria that has been historically used by bureaucrats in the visa office to deny visas.
In case you haven't been involved in obtaining visas for foreigners before, this is unfortunately quite common. I've seen this many times, despite impeccable invitation letters, pre-paid round trip air tickets, evidence of foreign funds (bank accounts), evidence of strong ties to return (e.g., children, close family members), visas for young folks (12-30 years old) from many poor-er countries get routinely denied by bureaucrats in the various visa offices ostensibly for this reason.
Depending on your politics and your sympathies, you may not care about this risk, but to some of the faceless bureaucrats running the visa offices, visa overstay risk is as much of a "threat" as association with terrorists.
On the flip side, see it from their point of view in "enforcing" the laws on the books: a group of young girls with little to tie them to their home country (and who might be ostracized in their own country for being educated), want a visa to travel to the USA on limited funds. Sadly, you gotta admit that at least a yellow flag would be raised that they are at risk of overstaying their visa. Maybe you don't care if they overstay, but depending on who was reviewing their visa application, that person might happen to care enough to deny the visa and I suspect that is exactly what happened.
Nobody ever got fired for saying NO.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
An Afghan all-girl robotics team was denied entry into the US for a competition. If you are thinking it was because of the travel ban, it wasn't because a) Afghanistan wasn't part of the travel ban and b) teams from countries that were part of the bad were able to secure visas.
What I thought should have been highlighted more in the submission is that girls are generally denied education in Afghanistan so this was a big achievement for them. I also thought there could have been more details around the fact that visas are denied often for all kinds of reasons. The fact that one of the girls on the team doesn't understand why they weren't allowed in is somewhat meaningless. I also thought it was kind of interesting that they could still watch their robot perform via a live feed.
I didn't get any sense that this post was anti or pro Trump, or anti or pro any issue. I read it for what it was, and I think the people who are bitching on both sides of the "argument" in this post need to see this for what it is - a very poorly written story summary.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
President Trump recently ordered a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries, but Afghanistan was not included on the list. Teams from Iran, Sudan and Syria -- which are on the list -- did manage to enter the country.
And
"We still don't know the reason why we were not granted visas, because other countries participating in the competition have been given visas," Fatemah Qaderyan, 14, told Reuters.
So obviously it's because of the Trump travel ban EO, right?
Apparently no forigeners were ever prevented from entering the US without an explaination before Trump took office, right?
This entire story boils down to "a handful of Afghan girls were not granted visas to the US, we don't know why".
Ken
So a story that has nothing to do with Trumps travel ban (which by the way worked properly, allowing in non-threat robotics teams from even counties on the watch list), yet somehow this is Trumps fault? Since the other teams who WERE from watchlist countries managed to get in, I suspect that this team couldn't make it because they put in their travel applications late or didn't pay the processing fee or some other mundane thing along those lines, but the alt-left media and their lap dogs here on slashdot automatically jump to blame Trump, yet when we find out the truth, that it had nothing to do with Trump, it will be a single paragraph on page 32...
We get it, several of the slashdot editors hate Trump. They haven't published a single positive thing that Trump has done, including the stories that I sent them. Things like:
- Trump killing TPP, something universaly called for on slashdot; we get no info from slashdot moderators
- Trump reforming the VA
- Trump banning travel from state sponsors/hotbeds of terrorisim with poor or no ability to vet potential immigrants
- Forcing sanctuary cities to obey the rule of law (regardless of what you think of illegal aliens, local municipalities ignoring federal laws is a recipe for anarchy, because why should I obey their laws if they won't obey federal laws).
- Trump slapped new sanctions on Iran for immediately violating their agreement with Obama by firing ballistic missile tests,
- Trump added 10,000 border enforcement agents and new ways for ICE to work with state and local LEOs,
- Trump has been working to replace Obamacare, which is falling apart (many areas have one or no providers in the exchange and costs have skyrocketed by 49% since Obamacare took effect, often for inferior coverage with deductibles jumping $1000 to up to $15,000/year) https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...
Media coverage of Trump is something like 92% negative, and we now have CNN caught making shit up and several CNN contributors admitting that the Russia-Trump thing is total BS. And the media wonders why Trump is calling them out for being fake news outlets...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
There may be reasons that the US immigration policy is a mess compared to the rest of the world. There may be reasons that a lot of the world's problems are due to a president in office for about half a year. The thing is, we will never know if this is true because there are so many zealots on this forum that substitute name-calling for fact based discussion.
Shame on you slashdot for modding this up. This type of parochial tribalism, not Trump, is exactly what is wrong with the world.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
In addition, their gender is irrelevant. This information has only been included to incite more outrage from those who feed off of left-wing identity politics.
I tried to *jokingly* make that point above & got buried. Glad to see someone's modding up common sense . I might have jinxed you though.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I used to help at an English school in Korea, which also put together travel packages for the teachers and students to visit the U.S. This was back in the days before the automatic 90-day travel visa for holders of S. Korean passports.
The children, males, and older (married) Korean women had no problem getting travel visas. But we had a high percentage of rejections for young females. Our theory was that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service thinks young, unmarried women want to visit the U.S. in hopes of finding a husband, and obtaining U.S. citizenship that way. So it gives them a higher bar to hurdle if they apply for a tourist visa.
the "Travel Ban" sets an overall hostile tone resulting in more visas being declined for sketchy reasons.
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The issue here is that the sellout Dems that pulled away from the drug import bill in no way represent "The Left". None of the Dems really do. Certainly not Cory Booker, who was most responsible for killing the Canadian re-importation bill the first time around. He comes from NJ, where Pharmaceutical companies contribute heavily to his campaign coffers.
The closest thing we have to an actual leftist in Congress is Bernie Sanders, who is an Independent, not a Democrat. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard, or sometimes Elizabeth Warren on one of her good days. Even Sanders is really only "left" if viewed in a US context. Pretty centrist compared to most European labor/left parties.
The rest of the Dems are so beholden to their corporate masters bribes (aka "campaign contributions") that on issues of economic justice and corporate hegemony, there really isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference between the Dems and the GOP.
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This is the correct and simple answer. I wish I had mod points, and you hadn't posted as AC.
horror vacui
of our entire immigration process. Think about it this way, when your boss goes on a tirade you take notice, right? How about your Bosses boss going on a tirade? Now ratchet that all the way up to President. That's what's happened here.
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Obama wasn't using Immigration policy as political capital. It was just one more thing he did because he was president.
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that we'd be turning away people to come to tech events because their home country is so rotten they might not go back?
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Trump's repeatedly called it a Muslim ban. Should we be surprised when his administration starts arbitrarily denying visas to Muslims. If anything the fact that it's not one of the six countries makes it more suspect. I've also seen it argued in the thread that the kid & their parents might try refusing to go back home. If that's the case we're got a bigger problem. A country we are at war with and occupying is so unstable it's people are fleeing? A war that's over a 15 years long with no end in site? And a kid trying to get ahead in the world using technology. Seems to me everything's in order for a perfect cluster fuck.
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Competitors from Iran and Syria were allowed to enter and compete.
See, if you turn your brain on, you realize that no matter what kind of culture it is, they still have to compete with the rest of the world in mobilizing their women to the work force. No one is fighting women getting educations.
However, in a country where there is quite some risk to simply traveling to school each day, males are better suited to the risks.
"Quite some risk" arises because people *are* fighting women getting education.
Males *are NOT* better suited to the risks. Read "I am Malala." What exactly is a grade-school age boy going to do when men with AKs stop his school bus and take him off it? More importantly, the discussion of the importance of the radio station in fomenting the culture where girls couldn't go to school safely is probably one of the best lessons in propaganda and how a country becomes radicalized that you are otherwise likely to come across.
The risks are higher for girls because people can gain status or power within their group of thugs by keeping girls from getting an education. But men aren't better suited to the risk. And in the meantime, making it harder for girls to get an education hurts the economy--but benefits certain people who cling to absurd positions because (1) it benefits their power base personally, (2) they are afraid of what will happen if they do not conform to the absurd positions, or (3) they have been manipulated by others into believing it is in some sense morally right.
Real lawyers write in C++
If their is a ban how did people from those 6 countries enter the USA?
You also have no obligation to invite anyone in your home. It will still raise questions if you arbitrarily deny entry, and people will think you are a quite strange guy.
What's your home address? I'll have a few dozen people show up just to show up and sit a while in your living room. That OK? Or are you quite a strange guy?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"Denying visas because of being afraid they won't go back is just ridiculous."
That's pretty much the point of visas in the first place - they let you screen applicants that are criminals, likely to overstay, likely to illegally work, or likely to file a refugee claim.
"There are other ways to enforce that"
When the government tries that, they get called out as inhumane monsters:
http://nacla.org/news/2015/01/...
"or just kick them out if they change their plans." ... at which point people will start calling the US a police state, since people who disappear are in an unknown location, and people get all upset when you check people's citizenship. Start checking ID, and now you're Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why do you think there are over 10 million illegals in the US? As you say, the US has the ability to hit targets at millimetre precision thousands of miles away. It's technically possible to do mass deportations (and it wouldn't be the first time), but people dislike when the government does what it would actually take to enforce it's borders after the fact.
So, the government instead relies on regulating who can come in.
but was a reason why she was denied access given? Perhaps the person that reviewed her request is pro-Muslim Ban the the person that reviewed the Iran/Syria ones is anti-Muslim Ban. Given the current political climate you'll forgive me if I don't want some extra scrutiny.
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Their gender *does* matter when it comes to tourist visas. In many countries, the treatment of women is so poor that they can make a prima facia case for asylum once they get here. Which unfortunately means that the consulates are then put in a very difficult situation of not wanting to discriminate against women but they only way they can avoid doing so is to treat men equally as poorly. It's really hard to grant tourist visas from certain regions of the world as pretty much everybody who lives there has a valid asylum claim.
Some typos are international.
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If a sizable fraction of the Muslim population wanted people like me dead, there'd be a lot more killings. Give them a little credit for competence. Where I sit, Muslims are not dangerous. There are parts of the world where this is not true.
I dislike Muslim culture in may respects, and Islam is my least favorite major religion. That doesn't mean I don't want Muslims to get fair treatment. The Muslims I've known have been good people.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The more visas we deny without good reason, the less welcoming the US seems. Every time someone is blocked from routine business in the US, it increases the chances that future events will be held outside the US. This is not good for us.
The fact that five Afghani girls are in a serious robotics competition is very newsworthy. Their gender is very relevant to what they accomplished (well, very relevant when considering their country of origin), and so it will be mentioned in anything related. You're paranoid.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Perhaps it's a simple answer, but it is in no way demonstrably correct. If that sentence had been simply reversed, highlighting the relevant subject of the story (Afghanistan is not included on the list of six countries for which President Trump ordered a travel ban.) then it would have at least been a genuine attempt to clear it up. Instead it's making the travel ban the active, important clause of the sentence. There is a difference, and it's purposeful. It may not be a conspiracy, but it is certainly an attempt to inflame rather than explain. In fact, writing the sentence "backwards" like that is poor writing. The important part of the sentence is Afghanistan is not on the list, not that trump order the travel ban. It being the second sentence of the article is also unnecessary. The second sentence should be the statement that it is currently unknown why the girls' visas were denied.
Are you seriously claiming that a bunch of schoolgirls building robots is a danger to US because they can make a bomb?
You know who else can make a bomb?
Anyone. Literally anyone.
Heck, if you're in US, you can just go and buy enough tannerite and stuff it in a fridge or something.
Apparently "significantly less than one percent" is now "a sizable fraction"
And if it had been more than "significantly less than one percent" we would all be dead already.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I'd assume visas are denied all the time with no evidence of problems. AFAIK, there's no real accountability, and the bureaucratic way is to deny requests when halfway reasonable because that's usually the safe decision.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
.. when they talk about liberals or "the left" interchangeably with "the democrats", as if amyone who calls their self a liberal is responsible for what the dem party does. I know such nuance isn't convenient for your all-encompassing strawman abstract, but try to be just a little less intellectually lazy.