Statement about the White House executive order restricting travels to the U.S.

Feb. 7, 2017

In light of the recent events that followed the change of the U.S. administration, the School of Computer Science expresses its deep concerns about the White House executive order 13769 issued on January 27th 2017 by U.S. President Donald Trump, which aims to forbid individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days.

The School is pleased to hear about the temporary suspension of this executive order on February 3rd 2017, and hope that it will be completely abandoned soon.

As members of the academic community, we embrace freedom of speech and movement. We are concerned about the negative impact that the application of this decree might have on the scientific activities of U.S. research groups and their collaborators worldwide, as well as the lives of many individuals.

The McGill School of Computer Science stands with the scientists and laboratories that might be affected, should this order be reinstated. In solidarity with them, we offer to extend collaborations with research teams based in the U.S. and to work towards arranging sustainable solutions for the foreseeable future.

We are also concerned for graduate students from the countries affected by the proposed travel ban who are currently registered at a US institution or who were admitted but now fear they will not be able to actually start their studies. Thus, we have extended the deadline for these students to apply for graduate studies at our School AND be considered for financial assistance to February 15. If you are interested, please contact our graduate program coordinator at <diti.anastasopoulos@mcgill.ca>.

We will also do our best to help those students who are already well into their studies to find ad-hoc solutions and set up possible collaboration programs.

An earlier statement from McGill University on this issue is available at: http://mcgill.ca/provost/mcgill-university-response-us-executive-order