The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), a global scientific and educational organization representing the natural language processing community, expresses strong disagreement with U.S. Presidential Executive Order 13769, which imposes a 90-day suspension of visas to nationals of seven countries and additional examination of current green card and visa holders from those countries.
The open exchange of ideas and the freedom of thought and expression are central to the aims and goals of the ACL. The ACL supports the statute of International Council for Science in that the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being. Such practice, in all its aspects, requires freedom of movement, association, expression and communication for scientists. All individuals are entitled to participate in any ACL activity, including those activities held in the US, irrespective of nationality or religion.
International travel that includes the US is now not possible for many of our members. Immediate effects of this order and its implementation on the ACL community include our EACL 2017 conference in Valencia, Spain, held from April 3-7. Relevant members of our community living in the United States will not be able to attend without risk of being barred from returning back to the U.S.
ACL urges the immediate lifting of the travel restrictions hindering the studies and contributions of our scientists and researchers.
Sincerely,
The ACL executive committee