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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#41

Post by bloak »

ur-whale wrote: post #27

From the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_c... looks like Mongolia and the Caribbean are optimal places to organize conferences.

> looks like Mongolia and the Caribbean are optimal places to organize conferences

The colour scheme of that map is attrocious, but perhaps you have a better monitor or better colour vision than me? I think Mongolia is "Visa available both on arrival or eVisa", which is presumably not as good as Kazakhstan's "Visa not required", for example.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#42

Post by yarpen_z »

lynx23 wrote: post #20

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.

Great advice for any PhD student or researcher!

Do you have any other valuable advice? How about just give up and quit your job? It would have the same effect.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#43

Post by duxup »

yarpen_z wrote: post #38

This problem of late announcements also applies to travelers that don't need visa. Recently, a major CS conference announced accepted papers two months before the conference date. Since it was a large federated conference located in a tourist destination in Florida, in the middle of the season, traveling from Europe was particularly expensive when buying tickets on a short notice. And there's the additional downside…

Is not feasible for many people IN the US too ;)

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#44

Post by arrowsmith »

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...

Not just the US - Brits will have to do it too. Thanks, Nigel!

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#45

Post by sriram_malhar »

xiaomayi wrote: post #37

This post might be a little biased since the author holds an Indian passport. He tend to blame the conference organizers to help Indian people to organize the transfer (VISA talking) to their conference. The thing I'd like to suggest to conference organizers is to set up an online mirror that might be used for people that, temporarily, can't get a VISA. If you blame conference organizers for some stupid rules about V…

Did you read till the end? Look at the last section titled "What can you do"; I reproduce the list here.

- Announce the dates of the conference as early as possible (allows participants to book travel, visa appointments, maybe club multiple conferences)

- Provide invitation letters in a timely manner

- Call for participation as early as possible

- Notify speakers as soon as you can

This is a very reasonable ask. Each line is a request asking the conference organiser to do it as "soon as you can", or "timely manner" etc. He is merely asking conf organisers to be cognisant of foreign attendees time constraints.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#46

Post by [deleted] »

ggm wrote: post #30
progbits wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a ridiculous security theater. But I'm curious, what is the distance?

I'm unsure. It's something beyond "don't be on campus" I also can't find any documentation about it. Happened to a client of my partner who was an ESL academic proofreader. The most likely situation is an over cautious interpretation of https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-inf...

[deleted]

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#47

Post by tooltower »

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).

Visa type is also a factor. F1 and H1B frequently get capped to just 1 year.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#48

Post by xg15 »

vient wrote: post #16

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 proces…

Sounds as if the current Cold War II situation keeps on escalating, people from a growing number of countries straight up won't be able to get visas for those conferences anymore.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#49

Post by light_hue_1 »

ggm wrote: post #17

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.

I worked in a building with a research reactor for years. In my office I had other students from China. A student from Iran worked on the reactor. We all went in tours together.

This is not a federal rule. No one was required to be any distance away from the reactor based on their nationality. No one checked passports at the entrance to our building. The doors were just open.

That's why you can't find this rule online anywhere. It's not a thing.

Sounds like your campus security went on a power trip? Or more likely you misunderstood the situation.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#50

Post by fdgjgbdfhgb »

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 (Brazilian) had to get a J1 for a 3-month internship despite having a B1, my sister had a 6-month J1 for another exchange, so I guess it can vary
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