[IP] Music professor barred from US for unknown reasons

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: September 17, 2007 2:36:33 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Music professor barred from US for unknown reasons

There's a disturbing article in today's NY Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/nyregion/17musicologist.html) about
a British music professor who has been excluded from the US after ten
years, without explanation:

	After a year of letters and inquiries, Ms. Ghuman and her Mills
	College lawyer have been unable to find out why her residency
	visa was suddenly revoked, or whether she was on some security
	watch list. Nor does she know whether her application for a new
	visa, pending since last October, is being stymied by the
	shadow of the same unspecified problem or mistake.

All Customs and Border Protection will say is that they had to exclude
her because her visa was revoked by the State Department.  The State
Department won't say why it did that.  There's nothing obvious in her
background to suggest that she's a security risk, nor even that she's
offended anyone with what should be First Amendment-protected speech.


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb


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