The Comics Reporter reports that Mexican scholar Ernesto Priego has been denied a visa for his appearance later this month at ICAF, the international comics scholar gathering> The ICAF site has a statement:
Ernesto Priego is unable to present his paper at ICAF because he has been denied entry into the United States of America. The U.S. government has not renewed his visa, nor have they given him any explanation why he will not be allowed into the country. ICAF protests this refusal of entry, part of a recent and disturbing trend of excluding foreign scholars, as an infringement on academic freedom.
Tom adds:
A native of Mexico and a published poet, Priego is currently a doctoral candidate at University College in London. He was scheduled to present a paper called “The Tell-Tale Smell of Burning Paper: ‘Logic of Form’ and the Origin of Comics.” This was scheduled for the theory and practice of comics studies track headed by Charles Hatfield.
UPDATE: Ernesto Priego himself stopped in at Marc Singer’s blog to make a VERY important disctiction: he was not denied, his visa was simply not renewed, a very big differencce.
I appreciate the post, but I would like to say that I wasn’t “denied entry”; my visa was not renewed, most probably because I did not apply for it in person and did not submit enough documents proving what I’d be doing in the States. So they didn’t know I was going to a conference. I had just applied for a normal renewal. I don’t want to make any further public comments on this matter, but I wanted to publicly clarify the distinction between being denied entry as a scholar and not having gotten the paper renewed. Information travels very fast on the Internet, and sometimes it gets distorted as it flies over the seas of bits and pixels.
This kind of thing is so unbearably frustrating. When I was getting my MFA we had some foreign students who couldn’t return for their second year because the government simply denied them access and wouldn’t review the visas. We all got to campus and were saying, “Well where is so and so?” Oh, they weren’t able to get back in the country for the semester.
At the least the government is working hard to protect the people of this country from writers, comic scholars, and Cat Stevens.
I think Bush has a morbid fear of intelligence. This would explain his inability to think.
It’s not the first time a visiting scholar has been denied entrance, since the so-called Patriot Act went into effect. The New York Times had a story about a music scholar who watched her visa being torn up and she being denied entrance to the United States.
Ray
Somewhere, Bill O’Reilly is giggling to himself like a schoolgirl
Here’s the real story from Ernesto Priego himself, posted on Marc Singer’s blog (http://notthebeastmaster.typepad.com/weblog/2007/10/us-government-b.html):
“I appreciate the post, but I would like to say that I wasn’t “denied entry”; my visa was not renewed, most probably because I did not apply for it in person and did not submit enough documents proving what I’d be doing in the States. So they didn’t know I was going to a conference. I had just applied for a normal renewal.
I don’t want to make any further public comments on this matter, but I wanted to publicly clarify the distinction between being denied entry as a scholar and not having gotten the paper renewed. Information travels very fast on the Internet, and sometimes it gets distorted as it flies over the seas of bits and pixels.
I am, of course, profoundly sorry I won’t be able to attend ICAF…”