Subject: QUIC meetings in the US

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 17:07:15 +1000

[ Co-chair hat on ]

Everyone,

You may have seen reports that someone who participates in this work was recently refused entry to the US*, for unspecified reasons.

Anecdotally, we've heard of an increasing number of cases of non-resident aliens being refused entry to the US because they are perceived to be "working" there. We are not immigration lawyers, but it appears that "work" is not well-defined in this context, and what definition there is may not be evenly applied. "Business meetings" are explicitly allowed under non-working visas to the US, but there is often a blurry line between "work" and "meetings."

Due to the nature of what we do, this might affect standards participants more than others. After some discussion amongst the chairs and with our responsible AD, we've decided that:

1) The planned interim meeting in Seattle will go ahead; changing the location is likely to be more disruptive than leaving it in place. We've been in touch with the participant mentioned above, who says they did not intend on travelling to the US for the Seattle interim.

2) We won't hold any further interim meetings in the US, until there's a change in this situation. This means that we'll either need to find suitable hosts in Canada or Mexico, or our meeting rotation will need to change to be exclusively Europe and Asia.

There isn't a perfect solution to this problem; every country has immigration requirements, and we've heard from some participants that they have trouble *leaving* the US, due to constraints on their immigration status there. While the uncertainty regarding the "travel ban" and its status as it winds its way through the US court system is a concern, the situation cited above is more relevant to the current participants in our work.

Finally - remember that the IETF needs data about immigration/border problems. If you have issues obtaining a visa, entering a country, or otherwise are unable to participate in a meeting due to a host country's immigration policies or actions, please get in touch with IETF leadership. If it's regarding a QUIC Interim meeting, your first point of contact should be Lars and/or I.

Cheers,

* Technically - they were told that the US did not allow them to travel on an ESTA before boarding.

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/