Citing Homeland Security U.S. denies visa to prominent Muslim scholar

Just as the current academic year was about to begin, Professor Tariq Ramadan received startling news -- that he would not be able to assume his teaching position at the University of Notre Dame because the U.S. government had revoked his visa. His furniture had already arrived in South Bend, Ind., and his children were registered for school there. A Muslim scholar of world renown, recently named by TIME magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people, Ramadan had accepted the Henry B. Luce Professorship in Religion, Conflict and Peace Building within the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and was to have started teaching this fall. A Swiss citizen, he had traveled freely in the United States as a visitor, but his employment at Notre Dame now made a visa essential. The reasons for this highly unusual action remain obscure. Apparently the Department of Homeland Security deemed Ramadan to be a person of "prominence" who could be excluded under a statute that denies entry to any person whom the government believes likely to "engage after entry in terrorist activity." The State Department, responding to such a finding, revoked the visa. [more ]