Melbourne boy granted visa for US space camp
A Melbourne schoolboy who was blocked from going to “space camp” in America following Donald Trump’s controversial visa ban is now celebrating news he’s been cleared to travel.
Pouya Ghadirian, 15, got a phone call from the US Consulate late last week telling him his visa had now been approved, following Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement that Australian dual nationals would be permitted to travel to the Unied States.
He told AAP his trip to America was a big reward given the obstacles he initially faced.
“It should be a good trip; I think it will feel even better now I’ve gone through this process,” he says.
“(But) the whole thing of me taking it to the media wasn’t so much for me – I could deal with not going – there’s 55,000 Iranian-Australians that were affected by that and I wanted to get it out there, and it worked.”
Pouya says he was pleased to hear dual national Australians were exempt from the visa bans, and even more pleased to hear the rules applied to the whole world’s dual nationals.
He also supported news the ban on people from seven predominantly-Muslim nations had been temporarily overruled by a federal court in America.
Pouya is getting ready for his big trip that begins March 29, in which he will travel with his Melbourne High School classmates to Orlando, Washington, and the US Space & Rocket Center in Alabama.
-AAP