Novelist McEwan barred from entering US by border officials

[kskiska]

One of Laura Bush's favourite British authors has been refused entry to the US just a day before he was due to lecture to an audience of 2,500 people.

Ian McEwan, who recently won America's National Book Award for his novel Atonement, was stopped by immigration officials as he left Vancouver airport in Canada, bound for an engagement in Seattle.

The man who was last year invited to Downing Street by Cherie Blair to meet American's first lady - who said she keeps a McEwan novel by her bedside - found himself detained for four hours before being turned back.

McEwan was travelling to the US as a guest of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Officials there told him he did not need a visa. But the immigration officer felt differently.

more…
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1183359,00.html

[bhunt70]

1. Man, he's one of my favorite authors too.

Congrats to Laura for picking a good writer to like.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

2. Why, because he has left-wing sentiments?

Jesus. What is this world coming to? :wtf:

[boobooday]

3. Welcome to the Bush State of Confusion

IDIOTS!

They hate artists. And artists mostly hate them. Nothing scares the Bushies more than art. Maybe not even Richard Clarke.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[yardwork]

4. Good. Some of the stupidity of our so-called homeland security laws

just came home to Laura Bush. Maybe she'll take an interest in some other things that her husband is doing....

[GordonOKC]

5. Let me see if I have this correct?

A well known British author is refused entry to the US; but the bin Laden family get special flying privileges just after 9-11-01.:wtf:

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Lesson: never trust anybody except government bureaucrats to

give you the straight dope on visas and passports. Make your own calls to be sure.

[MisterP]

7. remember Reagan barring Farley Mowat?

and the banned Canadian "propaganda" films?

[yardwork]

8. Was that the film about wolves?

Reagan didn't like the pro-wolf approach. Wolves live in the arctic circle. There's oil in them thar hills! Wolves gotta go.

Generations of assholes!

[Minstrel Boy]

11. At least one Cdn film banned was "If You Love This Planet"

Helen Caldicott's anti-nuke lecture, by the National Film Board of Canada.

I think the reason Mowat was barred entry was because he claimed in a book that he would shoot his rifle at low-flying US warplanes conducting exercises over Canada.

At one time, even Prime Minister Trudeau was barred entry. That was, of course, before he was PM. But his youthful travels in the Soviet Union and China raised, er, red flags.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. The film about wolves "Never Cry Wolf" IS based on

a book by Farley Mowat, but the film wasn't banned (I saw it in a theater in Minneapolis)--Mowat was.

The reason was that he made remarks about some joint Canadian-U.S. military maneuvers or something on that order, joking that he would take out his hunting rifle and shoot down any U.S. planes that came over his land.

(Yeah, as if he could have really taken down a fighter jet from the ground with a hunting rifle.)

Anyway, those are the remarks that got him banned. I'm sure that taught him to love the old U.S. of A.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. It doesn't seem that McEwan's been barred, just that he

had bad advice and failed to secure a visa needed to enter the US from Canada. Presumably, Canadians don't have to have visas to cross the border but citizens of other countries entering through Canada do?

[truebrit71]

12. Nope...UK citizens do not need a visa to enter the States..

My (British) parents do it all the time when they visit friends in Canada and then me in Chicago...

Methinks someone just made a career-ending decision....

[AP]

15. They do if, like McEwen, they were going to earn money.

I presume he was getting paid.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Not necessarily

Lecturers can get paid for a lecture under a B-1 visa, and UK citizens are eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, meaning they don't need a B-1 visa. If McEwen regularly gets paid for lectures in the USA, this wouldn't apply.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_web/visa/niv/b1apply.htm
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_web/visa/niv/b1.htm
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_web/visa/niv/vwp.htm

[AP]

20. The article says he didn't have ANY visa (right?)

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. To conduct business you need a B-1 visa

which allows you to do so for a period of up to 90 days. An occasional lecture to a non-profit institution counts as this (as long as the lectures aren't frequent).
If you come from a country, such as the UK, eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, you do not need to obtain a B-1 visa; you just fill out a form on the plane, or at the border. This allows you to do what you could have with a B-1 visa. I have personally come into the USA on the Visa Waiver Program, for business purposes (not lecturing, though).

As I said in a post below, it's possible that being a writer, he's been classified as working for the media, who do need a visa. McEwan has written for The Guardian in the past.

[AP]

24. And that's what happened. He didn't fill out the visa form.

I'm not rereading the article. If you look at it, it says he was stopped becaused he didn't have a visa.

He probably filled it out and was then let in the country.

I don't know about the US, but the UK lets artists in to work without a visa. So if you're a writer or a sculptur and you want to live, and work, and sell your craft in the UK, you can do it.

I suspect that the US has a similar rule.

The issue here was probably whether McEwen was coming it to do work as an artist, or if talking about his books doesn't qualify as doing work as an artist.

[AP]

25. And a quick note about B1 visas--

I think if you're a business visitor getting paid for your work in America, you wouldn't qualify.

If you're visiting, and you're getting paid by your British employer to do work in the US, you probably would qualify.

And, the first site I searched said that coming to the US to give a lecture sounds innocent, but would probably doesn't fall under the B1 visa permitted activities.

Muriel, by the way, what business are you in?

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. From the link I provided earlier (US embassy)

If you are traveling to the United States in connection with a speaking engagement you may travel on a B-1 visa provided there is no remuneration from a U.S.source, other than expenses incidental to the visit. Speakers/lectures who will receive an honorarium in addition to incidental expenses may still be eligible for the B-1 visa provided all of the following are met:

the activities will last no longer than nine days at a single institution;
the institution is a nonprofit research organization or a governmental research organization, or an institution of higher education, or a related or affiliated nonprofit entity.
such activities are conducted for the benefit of the institution or entity; and
the speaker/lecturer has not accepted such payment or expenses from five such institutions during the previous six month period.

The story says he spent 4 hours in the airport, and then had to return to a Vancouver hotel. A visa has to be applied for, in person, in advance, from an American embassy or consulate. The form you fill in on a plane (or, I think, in the case of Canadian airports, in the airport, since the US stations its immigration officials in Canada) is for a visa waiver - which waives the need for the B-1 (or equivalent 90 day tourist) visa.
Since he was turned back, this seems to indicate the offical was saying a B-1 visa wasn't good enough for his visit - Caltech thought it was (presumably because of the above quoted reason).

[AP]

27. Which is what I said in my first post. He was getting paid for his work

in the US and didn't have the appropriate visa.

And like I said, I presume that the US has the same exception for artists that the UK has.

Getting paid for a lecture about your art isn't the same as getting paid for your art, so that's probably the gray area that other border guards probably didn't care to discuss.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. No, your first post said nothing

about lectures, B-1 visas, or visa waiver programs. You just gave a blanket "UK citizens require a visa to earn". I pointed out there are exceptions (as Caltech obviously thinks too). Don't try to claim you said the same thing.

[AP]

29. Settle down. I was merely trying to offer the counterpoint to the claim

that this was a national security issue.

This is what I said.

Sorry I didn't get into the details.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. They keep out scientists, novelists, and historians ...

... but they allow members of the Saudi financial elites to come and go as they please (and I speak of the family Bin Laden).

Just another small incident in America's ongoing humiliation by Team Bush and the Brown Diaper Republican Brigade and Playgroup.

--bkl
It's not rosacea -- I just follow the news too well.

[Eye and Monkey]

13. McEwan: "beside me...a lady who had a suitcase stuffed full of banknotes"

Last paragraph of the article:

"McEwan got stuck in the middle. Last night he said: "The irony is that beside me, when I was being questioned, was a lady who had a suitcase stuffed full of banknotes. I had to be very careful not to lose my temper."

[pacifictiger]

14. I think it was last month I heard

about an Amish guy who had gone into Canada for his father's funeral, no passport required, and the US border would not let him back into this country. Not sure whether he ever made it back to his family yet or not.

[countmyvote4real]

16. The pen is mightier than the hijacker

and thus should not receive passage.

And what color alert is that?

[RainDog]

18. This is about new rules for visas

If you are a journalist who is going to be paid in any capacity, you have to have a visa.

I suppose the U. was going to pay McEwan an honorarium for his appearance, and his appearance was work, which he probably stated when he was interviewed by the immigration officer...therefore he needed a visa.

If he had said he was coming to the U.S. for a vacation, apparently there is no problem.

The same thing happened to an Aussie journalist who was entering the country to interview Olivia Newton John.

So the point is...lie, apparently, and there is no problem. No matter what, you are coming to America to vacation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. That's specifically about "representatives of the media"

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_web/visa/niv/media.htm

Maybe the official thought this applies to any writer.

[AP]

30. They'd catch up with you when you paid your taxes (or when you didn't).

You can't lie if you're getting paid by someone and there's some reporting of it to the IRS.

If the person paying you reports the income they paid you, and you never report it, you might turn up on list and get nailed next time you came to the country.

So don't lie.

[mainer]

22. Border Patrol people are going nuts

There was a news article here in the Maine newspapers a few weeks ago, about a Border Patrol guard who was stationed at the Portland, Maine bus station looking over arriving passengers from Boston. He stopped one young AMERICAN woman and asked for her I.D. She showed him her Maine driver's license. Then he asked for her passport. She told him, "I just got off a bus from Boston to Portland! I don't need a passport!" He gave her a scolding for her attitude.

Unfortunately for him, her father's a columnist for the Portland Press Herald!