Afghan students denied U.S. visas, robot OK’d

Six females will have to watch via video link as their device competes

KABUL, Afghanistan — Six female students from war-torn Afghanistan who had hoped to participate in an international robotics competition in the U.S. this month will have to watch via video link after their visa applications were denied — not once, but twice.

The girls wanted to show the world that Afghans can also construct a hand-made robot. But of 162 teams who planned to participate, the Afghan girls are the only nation’s team to be denied visas by the U.S. and must participate from afar, watching from their hometown in western Afghanistan.

“When we heard that we were rejected we lost hope,” said 14-year-old Sumaya Farooqi. “We applied again for the U.S. visa and we were rejected again.”

Farooqi and her teammates had already faced seemingly Teenagers from the Afghanistan Robotic House practice July 6 at the Better Idea Organization center, in Herat, Afghanistan. Six female students from Afghanistan who had hoped to participate in an international robotics competition in Washington D.C will have to watch via video link after the U.S. denied them visas — not once, but twice.

insurmountable obstacles to even get to a point where they could seek permission to attend. It took them six months to prepare, often working seven days a week, as they constructed a robot that sorts balls and can move objects to put them in their correct places.

The girls traveled from their homes in Herat after convincing

family members to let them go.

They made the 500-mile journey to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul twice because their applications were denied a first time, even though that area was targeted by a deadly truck bomb on May 31 in which more 150 people were killed and more than 400 others wounded.

Afghanistan is not part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to temporarily ban travel from six Muslim-majority countries. Yet teams from Syria, Iran and Sudan — who are on that list — were granted visas to compete.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on why the Afghan team’s visa applications were denied, saying “all visa applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S. law.”

The competition is an initiative by First Global, a not-for-profit charity that holds the annual international robotics challenge in hopes of sparking a passion for science and technology among high school students around the world. It takes place from July 16-18 in Washington, D.C.

Although the Afghan girls were denied entry into the country, the team’s robot was not.

“How can someone accept that a robot makes it through customs but the inventors of the robot can’t make it?” said Mohammad Reza Rezayee, director of the Afghanistan Robotic House Institute in Herat.