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SCIENCE POLICY
National Academies say delays for foreign scientists harm U.S. science Government efforts to constrain the flow of international visitors to the U.S. in the name of national security are having "serious unintended consequences for American science, engineering, and medicine," says a letter signed last week by the presidents of the National Academies (NAS) in Washington, D.C. The statement is available at http://www.nas.edu. "We understand the need for security, but there needs to be a better way for people to be checked out," says Lois Peterson, assistant director of the NAS Board on International Scientific Organizations. She says U.S. consular officials--who can be held legally accountable if a visa holder commits a terrorist act on U.S. soil--are referring many visa applications for sequential security clearances by several agencies. "There is not a good system for looking at the applications once they are sent to Washington," Peterson says, noting that three high-level NAS programs with direct impact on U.S. interests overseas have been affected. In one instance, she says, an NAS foreign associate from Russia was blocked when he tried to come to the U.S. to be inducted as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In another case, she says, Russian scientists who are part of a U.S.-Russia effort aimed at nuclear disarmament were denied visas, as were Chinese scientists who wanted to attend an NAS-sponsored meeting titled "Chinese-American Frontiers of Science." The process today for obtaining a visa, write the NAS presidents, has meant that "ongoing research collaborations have been hampered; that outstanding young scientists, engineers, and health researchers have been prevented from or delayed in entering this country; that important international conferences have been canceled or negatively impacted; and that such conferences will be moved out of the United States in the future if the situation is not corrected. Prompt action is needed." |
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