ICAF chair Marc Singer emailed Tom yesterday regarding last week’s story about scholar Ernesto Priego not being able to get his visa renewed in time to be able to attend ICAF:

Second, I have to disagree with Ernesto’s distinction (repeated in Chris Mautner’s article and yours) between being denied entry and not having his visa renewed; they’re one and the same. Whether he’s turned back at the airport or his visa application is rejected, he’s still not allowed to come into the country and present his scholarship.

[snip]

There are plenty of reasons for anybody to find this story confusing. One way to account for the discrepancies between the different public interpretations of events is to remember that Ernesto Priego is counting on getting visas approved for future conference visits to the United States, whereas I don’t have to worry about that. I stand behind every statement I have made on this story.

Tom offers his thoughts on the matter as well:

ICAF’s take could be true — indeed, the truth could be far worse than we imagine! — but I don’t think there’s enough there for me to endorse it over Priego’s now repeated insistence to the contrary based solely on the suggestion that Priego might be understandably less than truthful. I’m happy to give Marc Singer a chance to stand behind his version of events, and I don’t have any problems with his advocacy for a take on events he obviously believes in, but my interest here is not whether Singer can make a case for Singer as much as the best and most responsible way to present the story given all the contributing elements, and what we know up to this time.

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