Venezuelan Baseball Team denied entry into US

[ThatRobGuy]

It's not necssary as a little league tournament doesn't have the same security risk has an Olympic event.

While it may not be the same high profile risk for things like being a target for terrorism attacks (if that's what you're referring to)

The previous examples I linked involving multiple different Venezuelan sports teams (and their coaches and family members) who disappeared into the host country or immediately applied for asylum (thus kicking off an extended legal process) shows that the other risks I mentioned are still applicable.


But ultimately, there are consequences and sacrifices to not having good diplomatic relations with another country, and "we want our country's sports team to be able to play in your country" is one of those sacrifices.

If there was some sort of Dispute between us and Canada, and Canada opted to restrict US citizens from getting in, my trip to Toronto would have to wait.

 

[Pommer]

The law is the law.

If you were one of those kids, who would you blame?

The United States or Venezuela?

Which country would I “blame”?; the one where I live and play and have my being or, the one that wouldn’t let me in to participate in a baseball tournament?

Your empathy-woo is weak.

 

[AV1611VET]

Which country would I “blame”?; the one where I live and play and have my being or, the one that wouldn’t let me in to participate in a baseball tournament?

Do you respect countries that have laws, then break them to make exceptions?

Your empathy-woo is weak.

Your respect for others is weak.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The law is the law.

If you were one of those kids, who would you blame?

Which country would I “blame”?; the one where I live and play and have my being or, the one that wouldn’t let me in to participate in a baseball tournament?

I'll go as far as saying I don't particularly care who the kids may blame...

We don't craft, debate, or determine enforcement of policy based on what may make kids upset... I've heard kids throw temper tantrums and tell their parents they hate them in a store when their parents won't buy them the toy they want.

Appealing to "how will this make those kids feel" is just a subversion & obfuscation tactic.


The current administration as already made clear the 3 major demands they have of Venezuela that will get them off of the visa restriction list:

- Venezuela must demonstrate it has a competent and cooperative central process for issuing civil documents (such as passports) and must implement vetting procedures for its nationals. (unlike what they have now which is where $500 USD can get you an authentic government issued passport as long as you "know a guy")

- Venezuela must consistently accept the return of its nationals who are deported or removed from the United States.

- Venezuela must provide data sharing and implement systems for US authorities to easily access things like criminal histories for screening purposes.


Until those criteria are met... sorry about your sportsball game.


As it currently stands, it's completely within the realm of possibility that one of players' "older siblings coming to watch them play" could just be some dude with a connection at their local passport office, with a criminal background, that we have no way of vetting, and that they'll resist taking back.


If this was really a purely racially motivated thing, the restrictions would've been placed on all Latin American countries. But that's obviously not the case.

Right now, only 3 of the 33 Latin American countries (Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela) are on that list. The rest are more than welcome to come play some baseball.

• Ecuador
• Brazil
• Guatemala
• Chile
• Costa Rica
• Honduras
• Argentina

...are all still in the running and competing in qualifiers

If any of those teams get blocked, then we can have the conversation of whether or not this is a "Trump bashing brown people to pander to racist whites" thing.

 

[Gr8Grace]

Why vet? Just shoot first, ask questions never. Everyone is trying to kill you!

Yes. Now you are starting to get it.

The world hates and wants to kill:

God.
Israel.
Believers.

Don't let them convince you otherwise.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Yes. Now you are starting to get it.

The world hates and wants to kill:

God.
Israel.
Believers.

Don't let them convince you otherwise.

You must hate life.

 

[wing2000]

I'll go as far as saying I don't particularly care who the kids may blame...

We don't craft, debate, or determine enforcement of policy based on what may make kids upset... I've heard kids throw temper tantrums and tell their parents they hate them in a store when their parents won't buy them the toy they want.

Appealing to "how will this make those kids feel" is just a subversion & obfuscation tactic.


The current administration as already made clear the 3 major demands they have of Venezuela that will get them off of the visa restriction list:

- Venezuela must demonstrate it has a competent and cooperative central process for issuing civil documents (such as passports) and must implement vetting procedures for its nationals. (unlike what they have now which is where $500 USD can get you an authentic government issued passport as long as you "know a guy")

- Venezuela must consistently accept the return of its nationals who are deported or removed from the United States.

- Venezuela must provide data sharing and implement systems for US authorities to easily access things like criminal histories for screening purposes.


Until those criteria are met... sorry about your sportsball game.


As it currently stands, it's completely within the realm of possibility that one of players' "older siblings coming to watch them play" could just be some dude with a connection at their local passport office, with a criminal background, that we have no way of vetting, and that they'll resist taking back.


If this was really a purely racially motivated thing, the restrictions would've been placed on all Latin American countries. But that's obviously not the case.

Right now, only 3 of the 33 Latin American countries (Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela) are on that list. The rest are more than welcome to come play some baseball.

• Ecuador
• Brazil
• Guatemala
• Chile
• Costa Rica
• Honduras
• Argentina

...are all still in the running and competing in qualifiers

If any of those teams get blocked, then we can have the conversation of whether or not this is a "Trump bashing brown people to pander to racist whites" thing.

Are you suggesting the administration should remove the exception made for major sporting events to be held in the US? After all, the immigration risk you laid out applies to World Cup and Olympic participants.

 

[Nithavela]

Yes. Now you are starting to get it.

The world hates and wants to kill:

God.
Israel.
Believers.

Don't let them convince you otherwise.

Is that why the USA has such an abysmal life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality rate, when compared to other countries with a similiar GDP?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Are you suggesting the administration should remove the exception made for major sporting events to be held in the US? After all, the immigration risk you laid out applies to World Cup and Olympic participants.

If it were up to me, yes -- I think exceptions for something like sports undermines the creditability and seriousness of things like sanctions and travel restrictions.


Replace "Olympics" with Comic-Con and see if it still sounds reasonable when saying it out loud.

 

[wing2000]

If it were up to me, yes -- I think exceptions for something like sports undermines the creditability and seriousness of things like sanctions and travel restrictions.


Replace "Olympics" with Comic-Con and see if it still sounds reasonable when saying it out loud.

Replace "Olympics" with Little League baseball.

It's a shame our powerful country can be so small as to deny a little league team their opportunity to play baseball in an international competition.

As for the travel restrictions, I don't take the Trump admininstration's policy seriously. It's not based on security or even immigration risks, rather, it's a policy to appeal to his nationalist (and fearful) base.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Replace "Olympics" with Little League baseball.

It's a shame our powerful country can be so small as to deny a little league team their opportunity to play baseball in an international competition.

As for the travel restrictions, I don't take the Trump admininstration's policy seriously. It's not based on security or even immigration risks, rather, it's a policy to appeal to his nationalist (and fearful) base.

I was saying if I wouldn't do it for the Olympics, I certainly wouldn't make the exception for little league baseball.

The reason why I brought up comic-con word replacement thing was because if we were to say
"Hey, there's this country that issues phony passports that are 'technically authentic' because it's coming from their actual government, they provide nearly nothing in the way of data sharing and inter-governmental integration for criminal background check systems, and in the past, when we've apprehended people from that country and tried to send them back, they've said "nope, sorry...no take-backs, they're your problem now, you'll have to be the one to give them 3 hots and a cot for the next 10 years"

Would anyone even dare to say "Hey, I think we should relax the rules so that people can come to a comic book convention and meet some celebs"? Not a chance.

But replace it with a sporting event, and then all of the sudden it's framed as if it's a humanitarian virtue to bend the rules for people to play sports.




As I noted, if it was appealing to nationalism, he would've put the restriction on all 33 Latin American countries instead of just 3 of them.


To use a sports pun, the ball is in Venezuela's court on this one. If they ran their government with the same integrity and cooperative nature as Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, or Costa Rica, there wouldn't be an issue right now.

 

[wing2000]

As I noted, if it was appealing to nationalism, he would've put the restriction on all 33 Latin American countries instead of just 3 of them.


To use a sports pun, the ball is in Venezuela's court on this one. If they ran their government with the same integrity and cooperative nature as Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, or Costa Rica, there wouldn't be an issue right now.

Venezuela has been and continues to be the target of the far right for some time now. There are other countries (Honduras to name one) whose security integrity could be questioned (a former president is currently serving time in an American prison). The Honduran soccer team recently competed in the CONCACAF Gold Cup....hosted in US stadiums.

You presume the Trump policy is based on security principles. I do not. I'll leave it at that.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Venezuela has been and continues to be the target of the far right for some time now. There are other countries (Honduras to name one) whose security integrity could be questioned (a former president is currently serving time in an American prison). The Honduran soccer team recently competed in the CONCACAF Gold Cup....hosted in US stadiums.

You presume the Trump policy is based on security principles. I do not. I'll leave it at that.

U.S. and Honduras Sign More Arrangements to Expand Collaboration to Confront Irregular Migration | Homeland Security

Today, on behalf of the Trump Administration, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan signed two arrangements with the Government of Honduras to expand bilateral initiatives to confront irregular migration through Central America. The signings, which took place at the U.S...

www.dhs.gov

Archived: ICE, Honduras sign memorandum of cooperation

"Today's signing is a reflection of the great bilateral relationship we have with the government of Honduras," said PDAS Winkowski. "Sharing criminal history information better equips both countries to protect its citizens."

www.ice.gov

Honduras has made efforts to improve their situation and data sharing with the us, actually.


Note, the two links above are from 2014 and 2019.

Honduras both committed to improving their data-sharing system (which they've done)

As well as signed a cooperation agreement to take in South American migrants (for the which the US provided resources for capacity expansion in Honduras)


So Honduras has actually been a good partner to us in stopping the irregular migration flow from South America to the US.


The reason why (I suspect) the conservative wing has put disproportionate focus on Venezuela is because they're a socialism cautionary tale. They voted for the system of economy and governance that all but guarantees hyper-inflation, bread lines, and shortages, and then want to bail and go somewhere else when it hits the fan. (and refuse to reverse course on that, and in some cases like the refusal to repatriate deportees, deliberately defiant)

As where countries like Bolivia (that still even has a socialist party in power if memory serves) was at least willing to improve their vetting systems for US consumption, and doesn't have a pattern of refusing to take back deportees. Hence, they're not on the restriction list.

 

[Hans Blaster]

If it were up to me, yes -- I think exceptions for something like sports undermines the creditability and seriousness of things like sanctions and travel restrictions.


Replace "Olympics" with Comic-Con and see if it still sounds reasonable when saying it out loud.

Olympic teams are official representatives of nations. In many of them they are supported by a ministry for sport. Nerd-fest is not the same kind of event unless there are international Bat'leth teams sponsored by nations attending.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Olympic teams are official representatives of nations. In many of them they are supported by a ministry for sport. Nerd-fest is not the same kind of event unless there are international Bat'leth teams sponsored by nations attending.

Seems like a bit of an unhealthy attachment to sports
(if governments are going to have ministries dedicated to it and it's considered so important that it supersedes other diplomatic interests)

...but hey, I was never really all that into sports.