Afghan girls team can travel to US for robotics contest after twice denied visas – Washington Post

A group of Afghan teenage girls will be allowed to travel to the United States to partake in an international robotics competition after their visa applications were denied twice, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said inan email that the agency had approved a request from the State Department for thesix girls on the robotics team and their chaperone to enter the country and attend the competition, which is set to bring teams from more than 160countries to Washington next week.

The decision resolves adispute that drewintensebacklashfrom human rights activists and raised questions about whether U.S. agencies were retreating from previous efforts to advocate for young women in Afghanistan, where they are often denied educational opportunities.

[For Afghan girls robotics team, U.S. visa denial was last of many hurdles]

The criticisms also fueled arguments thatPresident Trump is seeking to ban Muslims from entering the country. The most recent version of Trumps travel ban restricts visas to citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries, but Afghanistan is not on the list.

The headof FirstGlobal, the organization hosting the competition,cheered the news in a statement Wednesday.

I truly believe our greatest power is the power to convene nations, to bring people together in the pursuit of a common goal and prove that our similarities greatly outweigh our differences, said First Global President Joe Sestak, a former U.S. Navy admiral and Democratic congressman. That is why I am most grateful to the U.S. Government and its State Department for ensuring Afghanistan, as well as Gambia, would be able to join us for this international competition this year.

Itremains unclear why the State Department denied the girls visa applications in the first place. A spokesperson for the agency told the Associated Press on Wednesday that all visa applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S. law.

In allowing the girls to travel to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security granted them parole,authorizing a one-time, temporary entry into the country for humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, a spokesman told The Post.

Members of a robotics team from Gambia were also granted visas Wednesday after being previously being barred from entering, as the Associated Press reported. Teams from Syria,Iran and Sudan, all countries included in Trumps travel ban, have not faced similar setbacks.

Politico, whichbroke the story Wednesday evening, reported that Trump had personally intervened andasked officials at the National Security Council to take action.

The presidents daughter, Ivanka Trump, tweeted her support on Wednesday, saying she looked forward to welcoming this brilliant team of Afghan girls to Washington next week.

The girls, all high schoolers, had constructed a ball-sorting robot to enter in theFirst Global Challenge, an international robotics contestthataims to promote interest in science, technology, engineering and math. After convincing their parents to let them attend, the team made two 500-mile tripsfrom their hometown of Herat in western Afghanistan to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to apply for visas, as The Washington Post reported.

When they got the news that their visa applications had been denied, the girlswere heartbroken. They were crying all day, Roya Mahboob, an Afghan software executive and one of the teams sponsors, told The Postearlier this month.

The girls wrote on their competition page: We want to make a difference, and most breakthroughs in science, technology and other industries normally start with the dream of a child to do something great. We want to be that child and pursue our dreams to make a difference in peoples lives.

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Afghan girls team can travel to US for robotics contest after twice denied visas - Washington Post