Re: [Recentattendees] Background on Singapore go/no go for IETF 100

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

> On 31 Jan 2017, at 17:48, Behcet Sarikaya <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 2:45 AM, Mani, Mehdi <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> 
>> As an european holding a french passport with my origin coming from Iran i
>> cannot travel to US with this executive order of Mr Trump even if i work for
>> an American company.
>> 
>> So i beleive as well that meeting venues should not be any more in US with
>> such à discriminatory law.
>> 
> 
> I am concerned on the fact that some people are taking this discussion
> to anti-America meeting sites, especially as someone living in the US.
> I remind people that just a few years ago, all the meetings were being
> held in the US.
> US is the home ship for IETF. Yes, I sympatize with those having
> issues in entering and hope that somehow those restrictions will go
> away.

Not to mention that wherever we hold meetings, almost half the attendees come from the US.

> Actually I propose meeting more often in the US, that will be good for
> everybody.

I haven’t missed a meeting since Beijing, and in all that time I needed a visa to exactly one country[1].  While I’m sure there are worse offenders, the US is not among the world’s easy countries to enter.

I like the US a lot, but there are downsides for a meeting. EU countries are considerably more accessible.

Yoav

[1] Yes, I realize that things will be different depending on your country of origin.