Re: Q3 2018 interim planning

[Martin J. Dürst <[e-mail]>]

On 2018/05/31 14:55, Mark Nottingham wrote:

>> 3. I do not understand what it means "cannot get out of the US due to visa problem"  ; if someone does not have a legal status in the US I do not think that this should affect the meeting location.
> 
> We can't go into details without violating people's privacy, but I assure you it is possible.

Because I don't know the details, I can talk about some general cases of 
how that can happen, based on my own experience and what I have heard 
from (unrelated) others.

There are at least two cases:

1) (personal experience) I entered the US with a 1-year visa. When the 
year came to an end, I was able to extend my permit to stay for another 
year. This allowed me to stay in the US for that other year. But to 
enter the US again after leaving for a meeting abroad, I had to get a 
new visa stamp, which involved a meeting at an US embassy abroad, with 
about three weeks lead time to get an appointment, which was only 
possible using an automatic phone system that was restricted to calls 
from within the country of the embassy.

2) (third-party story) When applying for a change of status (e.g. from a 
temporary to a permanent ("green card") permit, people are not allowed 
to leave the country.

There may be other cases, or something I got wrong, or things may have 
changed, but I hope the above helps to get an idea of how it can happen.

Regards,   Martin.