The USA – An example how to get rid of a good academic reputation

A fellow student of mine just received the second refusal for his visa application for travelling to an OSA-conference in the USA. There are countries in the world that anyway do not have any serious science. Germany has in this case a very good reputation. For a long time also the USA. Until with strengthened efforts for “Homeland security” after 9/11 the security standards were increased as insane as the international research society was effectively hit.

My fellow student is Chinese and has achieved good scientific results. That is why he is allowed to go to the conference and present his results to a distinguished audience. The US administration assumes that he wouldn’t come back, once that he is in the USA, which is nonsense if you look at what scientific environment he has here at why he has come to Germany’s Max-Planck-society to finish his master in Physics. But even a dedicated letter of my professor, has not changed anything. So it seems that the US embassy will not get the approximately 200 Euros for the visum. And my colleague will not be able to go to the conference.