[At-Large] The visa to Canada and fall of participation of LAC in ATLAS III

Sat Oct 26 22:27:23 UTC 2019

+1 Evan

IMHO, there are two ways to deal with issues: the first one, is to analyse the problem and to try to understand it in detail, the second one is to jump to conclusions and scream bloody murder. While you are never sure to be able to solve the problem taking the former approach, you are damn sure that taking the latter might get you brownie points but will not get you one single inch forward.

Last but not least, there is some fundamental racism in accusing others of being racist not based on facts but only on presumption of behaviour, in particular when these presumptions go against the evidence.

And now, open for flames,
R.

On 26.10.2019, at 11:14, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org<mailto:evan at telly.org>> wrote:

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 at 19:26, Peters Omoragbon <petersomoragbon at gmail.com<mailto:petersomoragbon at gmail.com>> wrote:

It is not only insulting but dehumanising for Canada to disrespect Africans with this racist diplomacy.

It's my understanding, from my own attempts to intervene on behalf of people needing visas for events in which I have been involved, that the problem is not racial so much as country-specific. The overly harsh measures stem from significant numbers of people from specific countries coming on tourist or conference visas who never go home and then apply for Canadian immigrant status from inside the country. This is widely seen domestically as "queue-jumping" and unfair to the conventional immigration process. As a result, tourist or conference applications from these designated countries are checked against a number of criteria that indicate the likeliness of  a traveller to return home after the trip. I'm not an expert in this and I don't fully agree with the policies so I won't defend them, but to the best of my awareness this is the rationale.

Not all of the countries flagged this way are in Africa (as Sergio noted in the start of this thread); the list changes periodically based on the sources of the "queue jumpers". So I'm not sure that the policy is racist, or that calling it racist is actually going to accomplish anything useful. I fully understand the insult and that it's dehumanizing, and the issue is highly political within Canada. However, attributing sinister motivation that isn't in evidence will not get you far.

People with valid USA and European visas to be told they cannot leave Canada after the event.

OK, that's just a complete untruth. Unlike many countries, Canada doesn't even do passport checks for departures. Whether any other country will allow travellers in is a different story, but in my many years of age I'm not aware of any foreigner denied the ability to leave Canada unless charged with a crime.

The biggest problem that I have encountered is that the visa application process needs to be started WAY in advance. Many are improperly rejected. An review/appeal process exists, but it doesn't happen quickly and sometimes people just run out of time. Having a good Canadian host to help with visa issues is important.

What is in Canada.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/canada

The visa problem wouldn't exist if nobody wanted to move here.

We need open up an online protest for signatures demanding Canada respects Cross borders'foreign relations!

I have no idea what you're asking for. Please be specific on what relations need to be respected that are not now.
- Evan

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