Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Ryan Mitchell Wittingslow's avatar
  2. Jason Stanley's avatar
  3. Daniel Greco's avatar
  4. Nobody's avatar
  5. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  6. Santa Monica's avatar
  7. Optimistic about LLM's avatar

Visiting Professors from Abroad Finding it Harder to Get Into the U.S.

Brian Leiter

A distinguished academic from the U.K., who has visited a number of times at U.S. institutions, writes:

I’m thinking…of giving up longer visits to the US. Not because I don’t enjoy working here. On the contrary. But for various other reasons, not least of which is the Kafkaesque bureaucracy associated with getting a visa and getting through the border and reporting every little thing one does to the feds. The whole nightmare starts with a 15-quid phone call to a rude and sullen call centre operative who handles visa appointments and slaps your wrists for asking questions. Those who live in, say, Glasgow then have to travel 500 miles to sit in the US Embassy in London incommunicado (no phones or laptops allowed, and nowhere to store them if you have the effrontery to have them with you) until someone is good and ready to take all their fingerprints and to look for trivial errors on their numerous repetitive and gratuitously intrusive forms. The cost is astronomical even without all the travel and accommodation costs. Then you never know for sure how long they will hold onto your passport: a distinguished colleague of mine recently had to cancel a long-arranged lecture in another country because the US embassy, which knew of his travel plans, kept his passport for a month AFTER confirming that his US visa had been approved! Europeans have started to refer to US travel, only half-jokingly, as ‘going behind the iron curtain’. Actually, this is an insult to the Warsaw Pact countries, several of which had a much lighter touch than today’s US. They’re now thinking of introducing a rule that you can’t buy a plane ticket to the US, even for a quick tourist visit, without advance permission from Uncle Sam! I wouldn’t mind any of this if it achieved something, but we all know that it is a competition by US politicians to see who can be the biggest ultra-nationalist bully, preferably by squeezing an arbitrarily-chosen selection of non-Americans until the pips squeak.

In an era when the scholarly community in most areas of philosophy, indeed in most disciplines, is international, this is a quite pernicious development.  Have others encountered problems with getting foreign scholars into the U.S. for extended, visiting/teaching appointments?  Do others overseas share my correspondent’s perceptions of the problem?  Non-anonymous comments strongly preferred, as usual, though if I can verify the identity of the commenter from the e-mail address, that will be sufficient (those addresses do not appear on the post).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

28 responses to “Visiting Professors from Abroad Finding it Harder to Get Into the U.S.”

  1. Glen Pettigrove

    Last year a colleague of mine travelled to the US from New Zealand for a six-week Fulbright seminar. He was spared the rude and expensive phone call mentioned by your British correspondent, but he still had to climb a mountain of paperwork and then travel seven hours (each way) for a security interview in Auckland. Although he found the seminar he attended quite rewarding, the 'security' hoops through which he had to jump prior to the trip did not exactly foster the openness and good will that the Fulbright program aims to promote.

    Reply
  2. David McIlroy

    This comment has pretty limited purchase but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case it's of use to someone. I'm a Northern Irishman who currently studies in the US (I did my undergrad here and am now doing postgrad work) and have had to obtain a visa on two separate occasions; the anecdotal advice I've heard (and witnessed in practice) is that rather than applying at the Embassy in London visa applicants should apply in Belfast where life is much more comfortable and the whole experience is much faster. And by faster, I mean extremely fast, I got my most recent visa in 1 day this past January. That's about the extent of my knowledge on the topic though. Hope it's of some help to someone.

    Reply
  3. Alan Thomas

    Just to be clear: if you are a UK citizen travelling to the US for less than 90 days you are part of the Visa Waiver programme and do not need a visa. There are strings attached (such as a machine readable passport) but the problems described here are those encountered by those staying over the 90 days. Otherwise the worst that will happen to you is the ignominy of being unable to remember, on the spur of the moment, which is your index finger for fingerprinting. (And a very unflattering photo.)

    Reply
  4. Matt Lister

    What Alan Thomas says is right for most people "visiting" from the UK, much of Europe, Japan, and several other countries. But, if one is a visiting professor and paid by a university (or foundation or whatever) in the US then this may not apply. If you doing anything other than "visiting for pleasure or business", where the business part would not mean working in the US for a US company, you ought to get the appropriate visa. In the past this was often fudged but rules have gotten tighter (all over the world- it's not just the US) so it's important to get things right so as to avoid trouble. (Just to note, British consulates in the US also have the extremely expensive pay line that is the only line to use to get visa information. This is a bad system, but not just an American one.)

    Reply
  5. Tom Hurka

    A Canadian friend of mine who taught for many years in the US suggested half-jokingly that the reason many Americans are so hostile to the idea of government is that their own government is so incredibly bureaucratic — not just about visas, about everything.

    Reply
  6. Ralph Wedgwood

    Another bureaucratic complication that visitors to the US have to deal with is that US universities now seem quite anxious about paying any sort of speaking fee or honorarium to a visitor without amassing a mountain of information to demonstrate that the visitor isn't resident in the US for tax purposes. After my most recent trip to the US, one of the universities where I was speaking gave me a form that asked details of all my past trips to the USA *in my whole life*! There was of course no way in which I could amass all this information without putting in weeks of (autobiographical) research. (Anyway, the box on the form where I was supposed to enter this information was absurdly small to record a lifetime of travel…) It's hard to know what's the best response to this sort of absurd request; I welcome the advice of others who have faced the same situation.

    Reply
  7. Mohan Matthen

    Ralph Wedgewood's remarks about visitors are entirely correct. The following is from a note I got recently: "the Accounts Payable manager here is very strict and if we do not have the proper paperwork all lined up neatly, it could delay OR PREVENT the reimbursement of your TRAVEL CLAIM as well as the honorarium. Things may have been more lax at other institutions but, believe me, there is no laxity regarding these issues at XXXUNIV."

    Reply
  8. Varol Akman

    The following permalink is to a short opinion piece by Robert M. Gates (then president of Texas A&M University), entitled "International Relations 101". It was published in NY Times (March 31, 2004). It is relevant.

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE5D71639F932A05750C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

    Reply
  9. Fritz Allhoff

    As an American, I wouldn't know much about trying to get into my own country, but I would point out that other countries can be hard to get into as well. I spend part of each year in Australia, and it's unbelievably difficult to get those (work) visas processed: it takes months and I often have to revert to a tourist visa since the other one hasn't yet been processed. I'm currently in Brazil for a conference and that was challenging (and expensive), too, especially for those of us don't live in cities with consulates (i.e., most of us). At any rate, these travel problems are hardly unique to people trying to get into the US.

    Reply
  10. John Gardner

    Fritz is right, but the main reason why it's hard for Americans to get into many other countries these days begins with the American government. Every time the US increases the requirements, the countries on the receiving end inevitably react with tit-for-tat increases in their requirements for Americans. If (as threatened) the US 'enhances' its visa waiver requirements for EU citizens, for example, the EU will reciprocate with 'enhancements' for Americans. The European Commission has already said that it doesn't want to do so (as have numerous member states of the EU) but will be forced to do so by America's alarmist and disproportionate scrutiny of European travellers.

    Reply
  11. Mohan Matthen

    Just to make it clear: it is absolutely correct to say, as Fritz did, that other countries are ridiculously restrictive as well (though I have never myself had that experience in Australia). I have no doubt that many visitors have had problems with Canada. The point that some of us were making was that the logic of some of the recent US restrictions is tiresome. And until just a few years ago, it used to be much less so. See for instance the quote I provided above about non-reimbursement. In Canada, and until recently in the US, they'd just take a whack out of your honorarium for taxes, and then you'd have to go through a lot of paperwork to get it back. (I suspect that most of us were happy just to let the money go.) Now you have to go through a bunch of paperwork to get reimbursed for your TICKET.

    Reply
  12. harry b

    The problem that Ralph Wedgewood mentions is not exactly the fault of the government — it is pretty clear (from my conversations with the legal people at my university) that the USCIS and the IRS allow people much more latitude than the universities he mentions are assuming — it is a case either of administrative incompetence or of overcautious interpretation of the actual rules.

    Reply
  13. s. liao

    To open up the scope a bit: As a non-American, I can say that even getting a tourist visa is incredibly tough, costly, and time-consuming. Furthermore, as others have said, the requirements that the original post complains about the US are the same for most countries, including the UK. If anything, I think European nations tend to have tougher policies about non-Western nationals visiting, not to mention working and immigrating. (There are, of course, some good reasons for these policies. To attribute them to "ultra-nationalism" would be a gross simplification.) Given the benefits already conferred to UK nationals (and US, Canada, Australia, etc.), I find it difficult to be sympathetic toward his or her plight.

    Reply
  14. John Gardner

    The changes to tax and reimbursement etc. are connected closely with the Homeland Security changes. Take, for example, the J1 visa rules. They have always said that if you go to give a talk at another institution while a J1 visitor, your J1 institution had to send an authorisation letter to the other institution beforehand even if you would not be paid. But until recently everyone took a relaxed attitude to this rule, and did not insist on the letter for mere expenses claims or even for small honoraria. Now that non-resident aliens are under more general scrutiny, and Universities have been sent stern warnings about their responsibility to monitor them, it is entirely understandable that universities have tightenened their procedures. They fear the wrath of the government (IRS or USCIS). If fault has to be allocated, it has to be allocated to the government officials who issued the stern warnings, and thereby made everyone's life so much harder for so little gain.

    Reply
  15. Thom Brooks

    On the contrary, I found coming to the UK quite simple. When I was offered my job, the university sorted everything for me. I simply gave them my passport and some documents and everything was handled by them through the mail. (This happened just a few years ago post-9/11.) I don't know if this is still how it works.

    Reply
  16. Tom Hurka

    In my experience — and this is only for individual talks, not many-month visits — many university financial administrators don't know the regulations for payments to foreign speakers, so it helps to know them yourself. Mohan says US universities deduct US taxes from honoraria, but you can avoid that by filling in an IRS form in advance, namely an 8233 (though you have to have a US Social Security or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to do so). But administrators at US universities often don't know that, so you have to tell them and also supply the form.

    As for flight expenses, they've taken a long time to be reimbursed recently but there hasn't been any special paperwork. Maybe I've been going to less bureaucratic places.

    Reply
  17. anonyme

    Sometime before the last election, SUNY Stonybrook invited a noted French expert of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger to teach a semester-long seminar. the school and the gov't agencies were unable to obtain her the required visa in time and the whole thing was cancelled. said scholar, feeling somewhat insulted, then declared that she would not step foot on US soil as long as W was president -and she still hasnt.

    i also vaguely recall an italian philosopher publishing a piece in Le Monde decrying the fingerprinting procedure from some historical-juridical perspective and declaring he would no longer come over.

    you may think these people are misguided or overreacting, but i tell you that one way or another, vast numbers of europeans now feel this way.

    Reply
  18. o.i.

    The calamities of the British, Canadian, and Australian academics for traveling to the US is not comparable to the cruelty and unfairness of the treatment Middle Eastern and Chinese students have endured as a collective punishment during recent years past 2001. Waiting 3 to 6 months for getting a 'single or double entry' student F1 visa is the norm. Rejection of an F1 student visa application for no reason is a regular practice at the US embassies across the Middle East.

    Talking about the Kafkaesque, no one knows Kafka better than the ones who wait months in frustration for their background check to be cleared (if they are lucky enough to pass the visa interview), while most of them have admissions from top tier American universities pending.

    Reply
  19. Cora Diamond

    A response to Alan Thomas's remarks. Someone coming to the US for less than 90 days, from a 'friendly' country, can be given a very rough time at the border. A Ph.D. student of mine, a woman who in no way fits any kind of 'terrorist' profile, was given a rough interrogation and almost not allowed into the US, from Canada (of which she is a citizen), when she travelled to the US to take her oral Ph.D. examination, in December of 2006. Fortunately she was able to reach our departmental secretary by telephone, and on the basis of that conversation, she was eventually allowed to continue her journey. The lesson learned was that she shouldn't have been honest about what she was planning to do in the US. She had no trouble in getting back in to take her degree some months later, having decided to conceal the fact that she had any academic activity in view.

    Reply
  20. Jo Wolff

    Tom, several US departmental administrators have expressed great surprise that I don't have a US Social Security Number. Are they right? Can I get one as a UK citizen? It would certainly make things easier.

    Reimbursement for expenses is incredibly variable, even from the same institution. I still cringe at the memory of a claim made by a speaker I had invited (many years ago) which took more than a year to refund. The official responsible for making the payment kept telling me that it had been paid, but it hadn't. After she resigned her replacement sorted it out on her second day in post.

    Reply
  21. David Slakter

    Jo, you can't get a Social Security Number, but you can get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.

    http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96287,00.html

    Reply
  22. Daniel Parker

    Jo,

    You can get a social security number, even as a non-US citizen. When I arrived in the US it was among the first things I did.

    Of course, this has nothing to do with the expectations of secretaries. People in the US often assume that everyone has an SSN, no matter where you're from. I almost got arrested by a campus police officer when I came to the USA to look for a place to live: he didn't seem to believe I didn't have a social security number, and became rather indignant when I refused to provide him with my Canadian SIN.

    Reply
  23. Les Green

    I've worked in the US often, and for long stretches, under a NAFTA TN permit. (I was born in the UK, but am a naturalized Canadian citizen.) The weak link in the chain almost always proved to be my employer. US university administrators do not understand NAFTA, don't know what TN is, have no idea how to draft an employment letter that might conform to the requirements, and so on. On short conference visits when I enter under B-waivers, universities routinely ask for my I-94 departure record (which is not given to Canadians traveling under B-1s). This is rarely the fault of the person I'm actually dealing with–he or she has usually been given some document by the central university administration which seems to be drafted in ignorance of NAFTA. Of course, NAFTA doesn't simplify things for EU academics (or even for Mexicans, who get a worse deal under NAFTA than do Canadians).

    Reply
  24. harry b

    Jo — you can get a SS number, and many people have them. You have to apply in person at an SSA office (I think), which is usually easier to do in smaller cities which are not landing posts for immigrants. Try to get one next time you have a spare few hours while visiting a non-exciting US city.

    Reply
  25. Tom Hurka

    Jo:

    I don't know about an SSN, but I have an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) from the IRS and that's all I've needed, at least for US tax purposes. OUP-USA, who publish my books, required me to get one some years ago so they could avoid deducting tax from my royalties. It took a long, bureaucratic time to get it (6 months? a year?), with several follow-ups required. But I did get it in the end. I think some of the universities where I've given talks have had the application forms and have required other speakers to fill them in.

    I'm sure you're right about the variability of reimbursement times.

    Reply
  26. Jo Wolff

    Many thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

    Reply
  27. a. ziel.

    As a French academic with an Eastern-European passport I am pleased to announce that last Friday (Feb 29th), Canada droped visa requirements for Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks and Lithuanians (for short visits).

    Still, the US resist, and it is clear that when a Eastern-European asks for a simple visa (for a conference) at the US embassy in a Western-European country, the interview can be extremely unpleasant.

    Reply
  28. E.J. van Veelen

    I'm a european national. I've studied six months in Austin, Texas. Getting the visa was indeed a hassle. Customs was a big hassle (being dutch and having dreads earned me special attention).

    My biggest peeve is that almost nowhere in the US my Dutch passport was accepted to prove my age: getting into bars, buying markerpens, or whatever. Getting a Texas state ID however was no hassle at all, except for the waiting period (although a fellow foreign exchange student had a lot more problems).

    Reply

Designed with WordPress