<story><title>Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU</title><url>http://cs.jhu.edu/~ccb/publications/letter-to-the-president.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>UnoriginalGuy</author><text>I wonder if this is one of those vague &amp;quot;security&amp;quot; problems. It seems like if people get denied for normal stuff (overstaying, violating their visas, etc) they&amp;#x27;re told and can at least fight it a little.&lt;p&gt;But when you get a black mark against you it seems like you get stuck in an administrative blackhole where nobody is authorised to tell you WHY or they themselves don&amp;#x27;t know.&lt;p&gt;It was the same way with the no-fly list for the longest time too, but because that wound up impacting a few powerful Americans it was eventually sorted so now you can at least fight it a little or do additional background checks to get off of it.&lt;p&gt;The worst part is that these security black marks seem fairly easy to get: family member or friend a &amp;quot;terrorist?&amp;quot; Share a name with someone &amp;quot;bad?&amp;quot; You&amp;#x27;re now on it. And nobody you can actually talk to can either tell you why or has the authority to remove you.&lt;p&gt;I would blame it on bureaucracy, but that is an easy out for a policy which is partly intentional -- Americans don&amp;#x27;t want people visiting, working, or studying on their shores. They have made that abundantly clear over the last ten years.</text></comment>
<story><title>Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU</title><url>http://cs.jhu.edu/~ccb/publications/letter-to-the-president.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>devon_air</author><text>I can understand what he&amp;#x27;s feeling as i&amp;#x27;m in a very similar situation.&lt;p&gt;I was offered a job by a San Francisco-based startup in January. I applied for a visa at the local US embassy, the interview went fine and the consular officer said she was happy to approve it but that I had been flagged for an additional background check which should take about two weeks.&lt;p&gt;Five months later and i&amp;#x27;m still stuck in &amp;quot;Administrative Processing&amp;quot;. All enquiries have come back with a blanket &amp;quot;matter of national security, we can&amp;#x27;t give any more information&amp;quot; cover. It&amp;#x27;s extremely frustrating. What makes it even worse is just the incompetence of it all. I have been going back and forth to the US for nearly ten years to see family pretty much every summer without a problem, why am I only now subject to an extremely lengthy background check?&lt;p&gt;My wife quit her job and we gave up our house in anticipation of our move and we&amp;#x27;ve effectively been in limbo since.&lt;p&gt;If anything, the way we&amp;#x27;ve been treated has made me never want to step foot in the US again.</text></comment>