Problems obtaining a visa to enter the USA.

stockhausen

stockhausen

stockhausen

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The director of the Turner prize-nominated investigative group Forensic Architecture has said he has been barred from travelling to the US after being flagged as a security risk.

Eyal Weizman, who is also a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, was due to attend the opening of an art exhibition in Miami on Wednesday, but was informed via email last week that his right to travel to the US under a visa waiver programme had been revoked.

In a statement presented in his absence at the Miami exhibition, Weizman said he went to the US embassy in London on 14 February to apply for a visa but was told by an official that an algorithm had identified a security threat related to him.

The professor, who holds British and Israeli passports, said the embassy official suggested that the threat could be related to something he was involved in, people he was in contact with, places he had visited, hotels where he had stayed, or a pattern of relations among those things.

He added that the embassy official asked him to provide details about his travel over the last 15 years, including who had paid for it, and specifically queried whether he had visited Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia or met nationals from those countries.

He said the official also told him Homeland Security investigators could assess his case more promptly if he supplied the names of anyone in his network who he thought might have triggered the security algorithm. “I declined to provide this information,” he said.
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Give us the names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, favourite colour and inside leg measurements of absolutely everyone you have spoken to or visited, anywhere in the world over the past 15 years . . . and we might let you in :rolleyes:

Then again, we will probably waterboard you either way ;)
 
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I’ve been visiting the U.S. on a multiple entry visa, not ESTA, since 1976.
Virtually every time I landed, no matter which airport, the immigration guy would turn to the page in my passport that had the visa, check the photo, look at me, tell me to look into the camera lens, put my thumb on the pad, then stamp my passport and say welcome to the United States.
Maybe 12-15 years back, one guy flicked through my passport, noticed a Cyprus entry and exit stamp, and said, “Why were you in Cyprus?” I said, “For a vacation.” He carried on, “Okay, but why Cyprus?”
I said, “See the date on it? September, September in U.K., possibly rain, possibly a tad chilly, September in Cyprus, if not hot, definitely warm, get it?”
“Makes sense”, he said, and stamped my passport, Christ knows what he’d have said if he’d noticed the Lebanon stamp.
 
In other news the UK bans rappers if they’ve said naughty things or YouTubers if they’ve voiced the wrong opinions etc...
 
Jean-F said:
I’ve been visiting the U.S. on a multiple entry visa, not ESTA, since 1976.
Virtually every time I landed, no matter which airport, the immigration guy would turn to the page in my passport that had the visa, check the photo, look at me, tell me to look into the camera lens, put my thumb on the pad, then stamp my passport and say welcome to the United States.
Maybe 12-15 years back, one guy flicked through my passport, noticed a Cyprus entry and exit stamp, and said, “Why were you in Cyprus?” I said, “For a vacation.” He carried on, “Okay, but why Cyprus?”
I said, “See the date on it? September, September in U.K., possibly rain, possibly a tad chilly, September in Cyprus, if not hot, definitely warm, get it?”
“Makes sense”, he said, and stamped my passport, Christ knows what he’d have said if he’d noticed the Lebanon stamp.
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I haven't been to the USA for some time. However, what many people don't understand is that apart from a (mostly) common language, there are massive differences in personality, outlook and attitude around the country. What is acceptable in one state may even be against the law in another.

I guess that the AI software used to vet visa applications needs some further (chargeable) work ;)
 
mrbell1984 said:
Why did you visit Lebanon? Was it hot at the time there too? :D
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I certainly don’t remember it being cold, I went there to attend the wedding of a Lebanese guy who was studying engineering at INSA, Toulouse, he had become a friend of an American woman I knew, who was studying psychology at another University in Toulouse at the time.
 
Land of the Free ;)

lulz

I probably wouldn't get in either, given how many times I've posted "Kill Barack Obama" and stuff like that :p "Blow up the White House". Let's see... "Putin is great." "Visit North Korea". "Cher sucks".
 
I was quite vocal in 2003 with Bush and Blair, Rumsfeld and Cheney. I have left off them for a decade and more now so maybe I am forgotten.
 
The UK is just as bad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51581497

I don't know what this idiot has or hasn't done, but it's incredible to think we can be charged with a terror offence for failing to hand over our phone PIN after being detained at an airport.

Good luck brute forcing mine, because I will never unlock my phone for anyone. You can threaten me all you like.
 
G-MAN2004 said:
The UK is just as bad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51581497

I don't know what this idiot has or hasn't done, but it's incredible to think we can be charged with a terror offence for failing to hand over our phone PIN after being detained at an airport.

Good luck brute forcing mine, because I will never unlock my phone for anyone. You can threaten me all you like.
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That would be the same the world over. It is an offence not to facilitate checks on a portable device, phone or laptop if asked when travelling, as far as I am aware. You can be asked to switch it on and show its normal functions. You would be held until you complied.
 
I'd be a bit screwed with the requirements these days where/if they want details of online activity... it would take them to the end of time to actually process the recent stuff never mind a few years worth. (I actually kind of want to do it just to see someone's head explode trying to take it in).
 
My stepson got refused USA visa
Because he had recently
Visited Russia
And got a jaywalking ticket
In Denmark lol
Hardly crime of the century
Made him wait 3 years before he
Finally got his visa
Now he's been to the USA a load
Of times with no issues
 
Rroff said:
I'd be a bit screwed with the requirements these days where/if they want details of online activity... it would take them to the end of time to actually process the recent stuff never mind a few years worth. (I actually kind of want to do it just to see someone's head explode trying to take it in).
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Yeah just picture them
Reading all 65k of your posts
In here:D
 
I had a rather interesting run in with a US immigration official he didn't like my passport I think some green card thing hadn't been removed after my previous visit and he gave me the third degree at one point I didn't think he was going to let me in got really quite angry. A few yes sir, no sir, thank you sir's later he relented.
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Just think once we get
Proper working quantum computers
AI will probably read all 65k posts
In 3 seconds and pick out
All the buzz words
That get your visa rejected lol
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You can probably read online content already that fast with AI.


G-MAN2004 said:
The UK is just as bad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51581497

I don't know what this idiot has or hasn't done, but it's incredible to think we can be charged with a terror offence for failing to hand over our phone PIN after being detained at an airport.

Good luck brute forcing mine, because I will never unlock my phone for anyone. You can threaten me all you like.
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Must have something to hide the eh?

If you where targeted for a terror offence or whatever you would prove your innocence by complying with whatever it took to make damn sure you where innocent.

You certainly wouldn’t sit there and not give your PIN number out been accused of that! That’s for sure. (unless you where guilty of course)
 
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Hasn't it always been the case that if you don't do as an immigration office says, then you won't be allowed in? It seems like nobody has any common sense these days.
 
Looking at the Wikipedia entry for the organisation he heads up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_Architecture I can certainly see he is very likely to have met some very dodgy people from very dodgy countries whilst investigating abuses of human rights, much as a copper "meets" drug dealers and murderers. Problem as always with this security stuff is they won't disclose the evidence against you and as he found out, any appeal just becomes a fishing expedition for them to find out even more about you.
 
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