Thousands of people from around the world apply to join prestigious u. S. Research programs and conferences every year but amid the tough u. S. Rhetoric over immigration many face complex visa rules that frustrate their efforts as have the ok i mean we could be here in the stream if you faced a tough time getting into the u. S. Or elsewhere to further your work or academic education we want to hear your story tell us about it live through twitter or you tube. Harvard yale princeton just 3 of the many u. S. Universities renowned as being well to meet us in science and Technology Research each year thousands of people from around the world and to colleges in the u. S. All join International Conferences that key steps along the path of Career Development but many scholars and experts in their field face a long process to get a u. S. Visa as a trumpet ministration hardens the governments stance on immigration and some are denied entry altogether Harvard Universitys president says students and faculty are facing uncertainty amid rigid visa policies chinese scholars are among those expressing unease as the u. S. Makes it harder for them to work in sensitive fields and business ringback analysts warn the u. S. Is becoming less attractive to Global Talent for a look at how u. S. Entry rules are impacting scholars and Research Professionals were joined from were joined from munich by cut him schomberg he is a Communications Research associate at the think the Maximillian University of me. He is an assistant professor at the university of california San Francisco where he joins us from just outside Geneva Switzerland we have Jennifer Hunt shes an economics professor at Rutgers University and has examined immigration and the science and Engineering Work for. In the u. S. Head of ways were going to get to having such a slot lineup many smart lineup Smart Community we have a lot of researchers academics and i mean any of that comes as no surprise to you but i want to start there because a lot of people sharing personal stories with us about the hardships they face trying to get these visas ill start with she is a post doctoral fellow at the University College london and here is the hurdle that she faced unfortunately creasing restrictive the policies of United States such as the travel ban has made it impossible for scientists like myself to attend conferences and workshops in the states where we can have a Dynamic Exchange of our findings and ideas for instance last year could not attend the biggest meeting in our field to present my work and again just yet despite the fact that im invited there to give a talk i cannot go and i am sending a prerecorded presentations that also to pass a could not attend job interviews of us or system situations because of so all of this has made america which was once a top just a nation to pursue sent to curie are unfortunately no longer. So cut are a list of obstacles in her way and i pulled this up because i know that you can relate you wrote this project walling off the ivory tower talk to us about your issue in trying to get to the us. Yes thank you for inviting me this year ive tried to participate at you know ready the International Communications associations conference because im a Communications Scholar it my paper was accepted social present there in washington d. C. And in the end of may beginning of this year i only applied for reserve. And they didnt give me. A special date at the consulate in munich at the u. S. Consulate there to answer many questions there and ready they 1st said they would give me the result and they denied it again while i emailed i had to answer 15 more questions about who was my girlfriend who were my working partners. Are the apartments located where i was living in the last 50 years but i was waiting for 3 to 4 months and at the end there was no decision decision at all and i couldnt travel to the i. C. A. Conference did you get any indication as to why you might have been 10. I think its a because of my research im conducting doing research on the kurdish media system this is part of my ph d. Project and for that Research Research i have to travel to Different Countries of the middle east so for example i was in syria i was in iran i was in iraq and turkey and of of course i told the people at the consulate that there was there that i was doing research there and i think this is part of why i was rejected and im also not just an admission im also a political activist and molesters activist and this is was maybe part of that their decision not to let me to the u. S. Can and i have to say many can i was checking out your social profiles where no visa experts but we did notice that on your twitter profile they described you as a mensch and a communist and that just right there on twitter for everybody to see that may well have influence whether you companies or are not you are laughing we also laugh and we thought that do you feel that there was more that you could do. In terms of and you understand that you know your area of study might be quite controversial. Maybe your writing Something Like this might be to make you more. Attractive. But so youre saying its to tight my political beliefs i think that undecideds make you rate. Kryten or not i think you have to be open you have to be transparent with your beliefs because your beliefs also affect are affecting you are ways of research the topics you are researching so there is i think there is the socalled neutral to your objectivity in science is a myth and i think im more on the side of transparency so i think that there is my point of view and then the people can decide whether they like it or not and. And of course you are not alone in that i want to share this from evolving on twitter who says these issues are a major problem for those of us from developing countries wishing to get Higher Education or even attend Capacity Building conferences abroad he goes on to say stringent visa policies are the reason for this its common practice for some developed countries to deny young enthusiastic student visas for rather unconvincing reasons honey talk to us about your view on this persons idea that these are unconvincing reasons and theyre really just stopping people from furthering their research. Well actually i dont i dont disagree i you know for example in the my medical field where i work. I think you know cancer knows no border regardless of your political view or which country you are these are the hurdles that you know all nations are all humans are facing and we really need our best and brightest to Work Together to solve these kinds of problems and a lot of that requires you know getting together thinking about problems together and interacting with each other so its absolutely not a great idea to have these valuers for connection. I also wanted to point out another issue that i think. Going to important to to raise and that is the fact that it is absolutely true that it is difficult to get in to the u. S. And the u. S. You know the reason processing takes wherever but its also important to know that one for a lot of the students when theyre inside because of those processing times actually are stuck in the us sometimes for you know durations of their entire duration of study which is you know 56 years and so the opposite also applies there are isolated you know from you know friends and families and and also having basically access to you know what we call back home basically yeah so they start to stay here for long durations of time if there are conferences now outside of the u. S. They actually cannot attend either so it kind of goes both ways. You know either both coming in or leaving is a problem for for a large group of students and i think the extent that is the problem i think is different for different groups of students from Different Countries so you kind of get this you know a caste system where theres different groups so students. Having to adhere to you know more and more difficult problems regarding the visa processing and. Jennifer let me bring you into the conversation im just looking here at the refusal rates for u. S. B. Visas and these are freezes that allow you to consult with Business Associates in the u. S. That you can actually work with these visas and say just looking back just over a year ago 2 years ago you can see the countries that are unpopular for allowing people to come in using this particular kind of visa into the u. S. Somalia iran to pity yemen syria United Kingdom france germany so france and germany are more poppy in terms of allowing people in do you notice that theres a hierarchy of who eventually gets into the country on a visa thats involved in science or technology of research and who doesnt make it i think with those particular b. Visas its actually difficult to know what from the statistics what the purpose of the visas are so we dont know how many of those was or for normal business also the sorts of conferences that people were talking about but but clearly whichever one theyre for. Putting barras in the way of getting such abuses interrupts the flow of both commerce and ideas between the us and other countries which is bad for both the us and the other countries. So i mean i think the people who are talking on this panel right now there are still kind of problems for example im having german citizenship i can travel to 167 countries without getting a visa permission. Maybe i would have been there to include someone from actually from somalia because they have universities there too doing some Good Research and letting them talk about their experience because i think maybe as some alien researcher you would never think about applying to a conference in the u. S. Because you know that you want to get accepted by the permission yeah honey you absolutely i think that i name 5 s. In terms of which countries make it and which countries stand even if its just going to a conference a consistent can you expand on. Well im not sure if its necessarily the right border or not but basically you know you have groups of students you know conferences are pretty much off the table for for many of these countries and students coming from those countries or academics coming from those countries simply because you know you are aware of a conference a few months beforehand and the use of processing far exceeds that. So what happens is you you cant you limit access and collaborations and basically exchange of ideas or what are entirely a large part of the population who is actually working on these problems but actually it sometimes are in parts of the world where we want to be known for it was for example when it comes to be but it comes to us when half the example there are certain areas that we want to feel and we want to hear from them and and these kinds of. Barriers very much limits and i think thats thats a huge problem Going Forward not for attracting you know the best and the brightest to the u. S. But also busy making sure busy that science in general remains borderless and we can have the exchange of ideas that we need to and online people are talking about the impact that all of this has on the world really so why do loop flores says it greatly impacts Cross Cultural exchange writing on you tube different perspectives provide different approaches to shared problems so keeping in mind that Cross Cultural exchange i want to share a video comment we with you that we got from a professor the director of Global Health programs at Mcgill University here is what dr might do harm i told the string. Reciprocity is very important for global we send lots of students and faculty members from high Income Countries to low Income Countries but many want to be less approachable and invite experts on loan from countries least face severe problems many up can really struggle with getting these us to come to the us canada and u. K. Which makes it impossible for us to learn from people who really understand what the problems and to new shoes are i really dont think will help our science in general can advance when rich countries deny. The ability for scientists to travel freely across countries and for is rich exchange of knowledge and information that is absolutely critical for our feed so jennifer you heard his take for you what are the knock on effects of this. Well obviously if you innovation requires interaction amongst people and sharing of ideas and building teams and combining different points of view as that progress from the girl just said and its useful to understand how important it is to realize what actually affects Economic Growth per capita so output per capita in a country can be divided into the quality of the workforce so you might say education growth and that the growth in capital also Machines Computers that sorts of thing and growth rather innovation and to give you an idea of how important innovation can be if you look at the growth in g. D. P. So output per capita in the u. S. Since the 2nd world war 80 percent of it is innovation and innovation can be partly technology and science it can also be things like improving management techniques or it can be things like improving the rule of law or Property Rights that kind of thing so it has many components but for that period in the us its mostly about technology and so this is something thats very important to the wellbeing of people and you for that innovation this sort of exchange that were talking about is very important and it can be exchanged going to conferences and temporary meetings where we can be talking actually about immigration to the us for example so the letter term visas and those be visit to business that you were talking about so student visas temporary work visas eventually permanent residence or even citizenship and all of those are important for innovation in the us and in the worlds. I want to add jennifer you were talking about how broad this visa system is and who it impacts theres a story that we remembered as a team about 2 youngsters there were 2 chess champions have a break your heart in the visa line yesterday this is the ambassador karma carter the u. S. Ambassador for kenya and he was in the line with a little boy and a little girl they are kenyan chasse champions and they say they were turned down for their visa so though a trip to the u. S. Was not possible this time i reminded them that they are champions but i find this picture once my i phone is going to heartbreaking that these youngsters couldnt come and play chess around the world and really develop their chess ability so it seems they in impacting the very young but how do you remind us a little bit earlier that there is a personal impact as well because when students get to come to the u. S. They get into these important universities they are too scared to leave and they cant go to weddings they cant go to funerals can you explain what that feels like because you experience that. Oh yes actually i mean this is the this is the but i went through. And. I was absolutely privileged to be able to do that and you know now being a u. S. Citizen now link here but. You know i work in your mind some of the. The worlds best scientists and so this is for me a dream come true but also looking back and realize all the challenges that i went through as a student and im trying to you know do what i can to make sure that you know other students do not have to go through the same process which unfortunately not only hasnt got better its it has worse absolutely you know we are in writing this is the dense and you know scholars in into out into our country and we are basically the host and you know their physical and mental busy health is is also as a is our responsibility regardless of you know whether theyre productive in this on the science front or not were also responsible for them so you know having students here for 4 long stretches of time with no access to go home to their friends and their families. Is is really heartbreaking i dont i dont know why we dont really hear enough of this i really want to emphasize it here that you know imagine not being able to see your family of 4 or 56 years. Regardless of what happens readings you know roles and you miss all of that. And its really not clear why. Its not clear to me it was not clear to me down and still not clear to this day what was the benefit of that. You then define let me. Let me share it and ill give it to you just a couple people sharing their stories says i was one of the registered participants for the mcgill Summer Institute 2019 i was super take in t. V. Research i applied for a visa and donna and was refused on the grounds that they werent satisfied i would go back home another person says i was denied a visa twice last year at the u. S. Embassy and to attend the u. S. Saf for a masters in Electrical Engineering and right now ive submitted my application at the embassy of france to study hoping i get it soon he want to jump in there this is the last week maybe for the 1st. But i think this conversation is about the u. S. Center because it maybe we can also see some positive advantages of not getting into the u. S. Because i think i think most of for example social sciences about income im coming from our very best are nice and very focused on what is happening at u. S. Universities but i think we should like should be part of a movement that that is trying to do you best are nice social sciences and also also other sciences so like shifting the focus of great job just from the u. S. For example to to the global south to african countries to Asian Countries because there is also a really Good Research and theorizing being done and we should focus more of that for example also by shifting important conferences from the u. S. To other countries for example my Communication Association i m c r is organizing their annual conference next year in beijing and not in the u. S. Anymore. I think its you know as i mentioned earlier i think youve also you know goes the opposite right you have a body of scholars and economics who are already in the u. S. So having access outside is also as difficult and of course you know i also Company Agree that depending on your busy earlier research i think you want to be in different places in the world. But you know certain countries are really for most investors and parts of science that these then if you are in those areas you want to be in those countries as much as possible i think you know you want to yeah im just being generous im not sure yes i was actually going to Say Something that reinforcing what honey just said which is that i think its very useful actually that brought up the distinction between fields because it does depend a lot what field with talking about whether it matters where you are where you should be but at least for the last quite a number of decades perhaps even 100 years for science and engineering the place to be has been in the u. S. And one could argue that the same person is more productive in terms of science and engineering innovation in the u. S. Than outside the u. S. And even if thats not quite true one of the things that we think is that its easier to commercialize science and engineering innovation in the u. S. So that for those fields what happens in the u. S. Is very important because it may make sense to bring people to the us rather than letting them work in their own countries but of course in social sciences there its very much true that different people have different experiences and different points of view different approaches often with studying specifically certain regions in the work a lot of the work should be done in those regions even engineering though some people would argue that the engineering problems to be addressed to different in Different Countries its really only pure science that can exist but independently of the country so even with engineering there is an advantage to. To having people from different places and working in the places certainly spending long long stretches of time ok. But to crimes point i want to go back to you because i know that some of your students are just boycotting the u. S. Is that why try and get into a country that doesnt want us we will go to where else are they going. So i mean as far as i know as students are tending more toward some European Countries including germany for example also canada over where the resists iteration is easier than than the u. S. But as we have heard it also has its own difficulties for certain areas. But you know i want to emphasize that you know as much as it was for example for me a privilege to come to the us and go to one of the best graduate programs it is also true that more and more busy of the gaps are closing between the u. S. Led programs and other parts of the world so its absolutely true that well more students will take into account these kinds of problems and will make decisions accordingly which is why they are choosing other graduate programs across the world or dealing with you know the result processing so the long run i think apart from the fact that there are ramifications for you know science and scientists who are in the u. S. Theres also this point that youre going to lose our leadership if this is you know this becomes the norm which is that youre interested in a point there that youre making because someone else means that on line this is dominic a doctor who says the repercussions for these people are not minimal for one these applications take time money mental effort for some people have to travel hours to a neighboring country just to apply for a visa but most importantly if these applications are rejected their voices are not heard every rejection is a voice on her and so i want to share the voice of one of those who might be on her and if not for sending us a video comment shes a doctor out of 1000. 00 dr nissen nessie song a song and she talks to us about being turned down for what she calls the lifetime opportunity of a lifetime heres what she told us. Amazing out of 311 in 2000 of the 6 chosen. Refused to. Even married and have 3 children and worked in nigeria for more than 14 years and management of properties in this country the immigration officer telling me that all my investments and all my family property all the money that theyre spending to sponsor me does not. Come back. So she says that we should use the money that goes to people on flights to instead set up a Satellite Centers in these countries thank you so much to you for being part of the conversation and guess. We really appreciate your insight into the complicated situation around. We will continue online at. Inmates learning from other inmates acquiring knowledge that could set them free. Through Legal Education classes and mock tribunals that dedication has led to staggering results even in prison in the us its all ricin and that was the teaching empowerment kenya part of the revelation cation series on aljazeera. The latest news as it breaks. Down last. Week detailed coverage no one is willing to return home to me on my own without sort of the ship papers and the security guarantees from around the world the talent is facing the new Prime Minister negotiate a new bricks that feel in 98 day a deal the e. U. Says cannot be renegotiated. Aljazeera explores prominent figures of the 20th century and how rivalries influence the course of history steve jobs a much better marketer like bill gates. Is going to really bad stuff all bill made software what it is today will change the world to high tech visionaries whose breakthroughs inspired a digital revolution jobs and gates face to face on aljazeera. Hello im Maryam Namazie in london with a quick look at the headlines now Syrian Opposition activists saying rebels have withdrawn from the strategically important town of concha koon in southern adlib province follows days of fighting which saw them firing rockets into government territory and a hunter has more now from beirut. Is back under the control of the Syrian GovernmentImages Released by pro regime media shows the town in southern italy empty of residents and fighters rebels withdrew early on tuesday