Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries • Hacker News Board

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#11

Post by domh » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #5

2143 wrote: post #3

As you mentioned American and Canadian visa has a longer duration, so visa renewal is something you need to worry about only once in 10 years or so. For Europe, I think (not sure) if you travel there frequently, you are eligible for a longer-duration multiple-entry visa [1] (the linked website is NOT an official government website). I know somebody with such a type of visa. [1] https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/scheng…

Regarding the US, as an European the ESTA is tied to the passport, so when it expires (or you lose it and have to renew it), you have to redo it. So yeah, usually it's ~10 years. EDIT: sorry for the misinformation, ESTA expires after 2 years OR when the passport expires [0] [0] https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1126?language=en_US

ESTAs expire after 2 years. It costs $14 and a relatively (compared to an actual Visa) simple online form.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#12

Post by dale_glass » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

Yup. I was once invited to an US conference that was going to happen two weeks from my invitation. Even getting an appointment with the embassy within that timeline was impossible.

Later I went for a different reason and if I recall the time to actually getting a visa was around 2 months.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#13

Post by tough » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 9:51 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #8

darkwater wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the US, as an European the ESTA is tied to the passport, so when it expires (or you lose it and have to renew it), you have to redo it. So yeah, usually it's ~10 years. EDIT: sorry for the misinformation, ESTA expires after 2 years OR when the passport expires [0] [0] https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1126?language=en_US

Side note: EU is planning to retaliate, and just as US is requiring ESTA from EU citizens traveling to US, in 2024 EU will start to require a similar application caller ETIAS, from US citizens traveling to EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Travel_Information_an...

People on twitter seems to think this is the -end- of American tourism for Europe, funny how just bringing the same standards suddenly makes us a no-visiting place.

FFS

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#14

Post by j16sdiz » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 9:52 AM UTC

ido wrote: post #6

amirs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the US you sometimes might get a visa that's valid only for a year, and in some extreme cases I've seen people receive visas for 30 days surrounding a specific event they were traveling for .

What does this depend on? I (Israeli citizen) always got 10 year visas to the US (now on my 3rd one).

I think B1/B2 visa last of 10 years.

I guess the 30 Days visa are J visa ?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#15

Post by mongol » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 9:54 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #8

darkwater wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the US, as an European the ESTA is tied to the passport, so when it expires (or you lose it and have to renew it), you have to redo it. So yeah, usually it's ~10 years. EDIT: sorry for the misinformation, ESTA expires after 2 years OR when the passport expires [0] [0] https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1126?language=en_US

Side note: EU is planning to retaliate, and just as US is requiring ESTA from EU citizens traveling to US, in 2024 EU will start to require a similar application caller ETIAS, from US citizens traveling to EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Travel_Information_an...

Should it be seen as retaliation, or just rational decision to prevent illegal or unwanted migration?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#16

Post by vient » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 10:06 AM UTC

There is also a specific subset of this problem named "USA conferences on themes from Technology Alert List" with common examples being information security conferences like DEFCON or BlackHat. Just mentioning such conference during visa application may already give you headache, and usually you work in this field if you go to such conference - working in critical field automatically gets you an administrative processing when your passport gets sent to USA and some agencies check that you are not a spy or something which may take anywhere from several months to infinity. Also even if you pass this processing, you will get visa for 1 year max instead of usual 3 years.

I know at least two such cases with my peers, one being my friend still waiting for visa decision 5 years later after Google accepted him for an internship and he got sent to administrative processing because of his job at security firm at the moment. Obviously, his internship expired years ago. From my experience, getting US visa is the worst by a wide margin compared with EU or UK.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#17

Post by ggm » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 10:08 AM UTC

If you're an American university with a teaching or research Reactor, make sure your conference organisers know attendees from China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria may be required not to be within a statutory minimum distance.

It's hugely confronting and embarrassing for invited speakers, paper authors to arrive and then get excluded and escorted off campus.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#18

Post by vient » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 10:12 AM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #14

ido wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this depend on? I (Israeli citizen) always got 10 year visas to the US (now on my 3rd one).

I think B1/B2 visa last of 10 years. I guess the 30 Days visa are J visa ?

I think 10 years visas are for some "friendly" countries, others get 3 year visas if no 221g procedure was involved.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#19

Post by magicalhippo » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 10:15 AM UTC

A friend was doing a stint in Ghana as part of their degree, and was the same there. Had to get a visa, but no embassy in Norway, so had to use the one in Denmark.

IIRC they had to send an email to apply then had to mail passport and money, so had to go to the bank to get danish currency. The whole process took a couple of months.

I knew about visa being a thing, but hadn't traveled outside EU and US, so was a bit of an eye opener.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#20

Post by lynx23 » Mon, Aug 21, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

Or, even better, don't accept invites from U.S. based conferences, and you will never have any unexpected issues. Best not to cross their borders at all.