Ordie
06-06-2008, 04:01 AM
Sudanese athlete blocked from playing basketball in U.S.
By Aaron Kaplowitz
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Few opponents have been able to slow Bol Kong on the basketball court.
Last year, as a shooting guard for Douglas College in British Columbia, he scored at will in exhibition games against strong NCAA Division I teams like Marquette and Boise State. He has drawn interest from a number of universities and recently received a scholarship offer from Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington.
It is the defense he has met off the court that has slowed him - and could prevent him from ever playing for the Gonzaga Bulldogs or anyone else in the United States.
Kong, 20, is originally from Sudan, which is listed by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. Although he has lived in Canada since age 7, he does not hold citizenship there. He has been denied a visa to study in the United States three times, and it is unclear whether he will ever satisfy the requirements for entry.
"I thought it was simple," Kong said by telephone recently. "I figured I'd go to the embassy, tell them the decision and boom, here's the visa. They just said, 'You don't have the right documents.' They didn't tell me exactly what they were."
Kong grew up in Khartoum during the civil war that consumed southern Sudan. His father emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s and sent for his wife and three children, including Bol. With little money and scant knowledge of Canadian bureaucracy, his parents neglected to apply for citizenship for the children. They received landed-immigrant status, which granted many benefits of Canadian citizenship, but they retained their Sudanese citizenship.
The Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, instituted restrictions on nonimmigrant visas for nationals of countries that are listed as sponsors of terrorism. For visas, individuals from those countries must demonstrate that they do not pose threats. Sudan is one of five countries on the list, according to the State Department.
For Kong and other immigrants from the five countries, the list of required visa documents is long. Assessing each individual's case from the outside is difficult.
The U.S. Consulate General in Vancouver, British Columbia, said Kong's Sudanese roots were not responsible for the delays in his visa request. But the office would not elaborate on the case, citing confidentiality rules.
"His nationality is not the reason behind his previous rejections," said Indran Amirthanayagam, a public affairs officer at the consulate. "If you happen to come from those countries, that's another thing that's looked at. But that has nothing to do with it in this case."
Colin Campbell, the Canadian research chairman in U.S. government and politics at the University of British Columbia, said it was unlikely that the authorities would overlook Kong's nationality.
"I think that Kong's citizenship in a country on the terrorist shortlist pretty much dooms him," Campbell said. "Not even his standing in basketball has protected him from guilt by association. He can continue to apply. But unless some major intervention on his behalf takes place, I doubt that there will be a change."
Kong did not start playing basketball seriously until he was in the eighth grade.
In 2006, he scored 30 points in a summer pro-am tournament game in Vancouver against a team based in Seattle featuring Jamal Crawford of the New York Knicks. Kong has blossomed into a 6-foot-7, or 2-meter, guard with nice range, according to coaches and scouts. After his impressive performances against Marquette and Boise State, he led Douglas to the 2008 Canadian Colleges Athletics Association national championship.
The game against Crawford's team two years ago apparently resonated. Brian Lee, Kong's coach at St. George's High School, said he once fielded a call from a Boston Celtics scout.
"Jamal Crawford came to me and said, 'You need to make the phone calls for this kid,' " Lee said.
Kong said he chose Gonzaga without having visited the campus in Spokane, Washington, or that of any of the other universities that recruited him. Among them were Washington State, Idaho and Nevada-Las Vegas.
"My basketball coach has been there numerous times," Kong said. "They tell me I'll like it - it's my type of place."
If Kong secures a student visa, he will probably be ineligible to play next season as a transfer.
"Most likely he'll sit, which isn't a bad thing," said Lee, who said Kong would benefit from the period of adjustment to life in the United States and to his new teammates.
Jamie Oei, the coach at Douglas College until recently taking an assistant position at Idaho, said Kong's nationality and the obstacles it created had turned off several interested programs.
"This visa issue wasn't resolved a few years ago, so who's to say it won't take a few more years?" Oei said.
Kong attributes his difficulties to bad luck and suspects that he was missing the documentation to justify his visa application.
Gonzaga has since provided a Department of Homeland Security document issued by universities to support the visa request. Kong said he hoped this would clear the way for him to cross the border.
Gonzaga's coaches will not discuss the situation; they have not even officially announced anything related to Kong's recruitment.
If this effort fails, Kong said, he will give up.
"Then I'm just going to say, 'You know what, forget it.' I've tried enough," he said. "I'm just going to finish my career here in Canada."
Source:http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=13485668
By Aaron Kaplowitz
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Few opponents have been able to slow Bol Kong on the basketball court.
Last year, as a shooting guard for Douglas College in British Columbia, he scored at will in exhibition games against strong NCAA Division I teams like Marquette and Boise State. He has drawn interest from a number of universities and recently received a scholarship offer from Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington.
It is the defense he has met off the court that has slowed him - and could prevent him from ever playing for the Gonzaga Bulldogs or anyone else in the United States.
Kong, 20, is originally from Sudan, which is listed by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. Although he has lived in Canada since age 7, he does not hold citizenship there. He has been denied a visa to study in the United States three times, and it is unclear whether he will ever satisfy the requirements for entry.
"I thought it was simple," Kong said by telephone recently. "I figured I'd go to the embassy, tell them the decision and boom, here's the visa. They just said, 'You don't have the right documents.' They didn't tell me exactly what they were."
Kong grew up in Khartoum during the civil war that consumed southern Sudan. His father emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s and sent for his wife and three children, including Bol. With little money and scant knowledge of Canadian bureaucracy, his parents neglected to apply for citizenship for the children. They received landed-immigrant status, which granted many benefits of Canadian citizenship, but they retained their Sudanese citizenship.
The Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, instituted restrictions on nonimmigrant visas for nationals of countries that are listed as sponsors of terrorism. For visas, individuals from those countries must demonstrate that they do not pose threats. Sudan is one of five countries on the list, according to the State Department.
For Kong and other immigrants from the five countries, the list of required visa documents is long. Assessing each individual's case from the outside is difficult.
The U.S. Consulate General in Vancouver, British Columbia, said Kong's Sudanese roots were not responsible for the delays in his visa request. But the office would not elaborate on the case, citing confidentiality rules.
"His nationality is not the reason behind his previous rejections," said Indran Amirthanayagam, a public affairs officer at the consulate. "If you happen to come from those countries, that's another thing that's looked at. But that has nothing to do with it in this case."
Colin Campbell, the Canadian research chairman in U.S. government and politics at the University of British Columbia, said it was unlikely that the authorities would overlook Kong's nationality.
"I think that Kong's citizenship in a country on the terrorist shortlist pretty much dooms him," Campbell said. "Not even his standing in basketball has protected him from guilt by association. He can continue to apply. But unless some major intervention on his behalf takes place, I doubt that there will be a change."
Kong did not start playing basketball seriously until he was in the eighth grade.
In 2006, he scored 30 points in a summer pro-am tournament game in Vancouver against a team based in Seattle featuring Jamal Crawford of the New York Knicks. Kong has blossomed into a 6-foot-7, or 2-meter, guard with nice range, according to coaches and scouts. After his impressive performances against Marquette and Boise State, he led Douglas to the 2008 Canadian Colleges Athletics Association national championship.
The game against Crawford's team two years ago apparently resonated. Brian Lee, Kong's coach at St. George's High School, said he once fielded a call from a Boston Celtics scout.
"Jamal Crawford came to me and said, 'You need to make the phone calls for this kid,' " Lee said.
Kong said he chose Gonzaga without having visited the campus in Spokane, Washington, or that of any of the other universities that recruited him. Among them were Washington State, Idaho and Nevada-Las Vegas.
"My basketball coach has been there numerous times," Kong said. "They tell me I'll like it - it's my type of place."
If Kong secures a student visa, he will probably be ineligible to play next season as a transfer.
"Most likely he'll sit, which isn't a bad thing," said Lee, who said Kong would benefit from the period of adjustment to life in the United States and to his new teammates.
Jamie Oei, the coach at Douglas College until recently taking an assistant position at Idaho, said Kong's nationality and the obstacles it created had turned off several interested programs.
"This visa issue wasn't resolved a few years ago, so who's to say it won't take a few more years?" Oei said.
Kong attributes his difficulties to bad luck and suspects that he was missing the documentation to justify his visa application.
Gonzaga has since provided a Department of Homeland Security document issued by universities to support the visa request. Kong said he hoped this would clear the way for him to cross the border.
Gonzaga's coaches will not discuss the situation; they have not even officially announced anything related to Kong's recruitment.
If this effort fails, Kong said, he will give up.
"Then I'm just going to say, 'You know what, forget it.' I've tried enough," he said. "I'm just going to finish my career here in Canada."
Source:http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=13485668