Visa fraud charges: Uncle Sam accuses four Chinese eggheads of covering up their true ties to China's military Four Chinese academic researchers in the United States have been accused of failing to declare on their immigration paperwork their true involvement with China’s People’s Liberation Army. “These members of China’s People Liberation Army applied for research visas while hiding their true affiliation with the PLA,” John Demers, …
There is a box on the form when you arrive in the USA asking if you have been involved in espionage or sabotage
An Israeli colleague who managed to dodge the marching and being shouted at bit of his compulsory military service by analysing spy drone images always wonders what would happen if he ticked yes
Precisely. Its actually really difficult to enter the US without commiting some kind of visa fraud because of the way the questions or worded (not so much for you tourists but have a look at the paperwork needed for a work visa or permanent residence). Its not important unless the Feds want to make it important.
Must admit, I also read the entire article thinking it was clever of the authorities to use the fact the Chinese had been card skimming to find evidence of their other nefarious activities. It was only when I got to the end that I realised the students hadn't been so stupid after all and had just been unlucky in getting caught at not ticking all the boxes on a visa application. I guess if you do tick the box, your visa is automatically refused, but at least you don't end up in a prison cell.
Found a copy of Les Earnest's tale about problems with telling the truth about a childhood incident:
http://www.milk.com/wall-o-shame/security_clearance.html
Or an expanded version which includes a link to what happens when you decline to self-identify as one of the 5 official "races".:
http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm
The particular researcher they were smoking out of the consulate in San Francisco -- the person mentioned in this article -- was working on radiation oncology. She'd been in the Chinese Air Force and I expect like other specialists in their home military they're still reservists.
What's going on is absurd. The Federal government spins a good tale for domestic consumption -- and innumerable people lap it up because we wouldn't be America without some enemy or another threatening us -- but realixtically all they're doing is starving us and our research institutions of talented researchers. (I know if I were Chinese I'd think twice about even an undertgraduate course here.) If you look at science news and the names on published papers you find a lot of Chinese people these days, they're all doing good work and if they're working here they're contributing to our scientific reputation. If these boorish politiicans have their way then we will be just another once great backwater.
Incidentally, someone mentioned Israelis and this pretty much shows the double standards we use here. It is reasonable to assume that that any Israeli you work with is active military because that's how their country works. I, for example, was working with a software group some years back and the group head was a submarine commander (yes, Israel has submarines), a programmer was a C130 pilot and so on. They were always going off for their three week stint enforcing security in whatever they call the occupied territories (the West Bank is under military oversight). However, being Israel they not only are not bothered by this with US visa forms they're also able to hold dual citizenship, something that's a big no-no according to the strict interpretation of the rules (you're not allowed as a citizen to work for a foreign government).
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