When does immigration step in, regarding short term stays i.e. an E Sports team comes to town.

Question

I was watching a Cr1tikal video regarding his E-Sports team and he was upset about his E sports team being denied entry to the country. Are you still an immigrant if you are staying temporarily? Does that make you an emmigrant? If not, what is an emmigrant?

In: Other

Answer 1

Athletes come into countries for events all the time

An Emigrant is someone *leaving* a country permanently, an Immigrant is someone *entering* a country permanently. You aren’t considered an immigrant if you are coming in to play a sport, you are coming in to work temporarily.

Visa requirements for athletes vary, but a lot of countries give exemptions for certain types of athletes. If your an Olympian for example coming into Canada you don’t need a work permit, you’re considered a guest. But if you’re a hockey player in the NHL you need a work visa.

The event or sporting body will work with the hosting country and provide lists of who’s coming and from where to ensure to that they have all the correct visas etc ahead of time.

The NHL for example has a great working relationship with Canada and US immigration because teams travel across the border all the time.

Depending on the country there will be different visa requirements and some countries citizens have an easier time getting in. Countries like Israel for example have a difficult time going to a lot of places particularly in the Middle East, so if they were to travel to an Olympics or the recent World Cup in Qatar these things need to be cleared well in advance.

The last thing they want is a competitor getting denied entry at the last minute due to a technicality or some other issue. If they aren’t allowed in the country it should be known well ahead of time so they can fix the issue.

Even then celebrity sports stars can cause problems. Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1) famously almost got arrested arriving in Australia on a private plane because he brought his dog Rocko without clearance and that’s strictly forbidden. Bringing a pet into Australia is very difficult.

In this case the organizers probably just screwed up or did a bad job getting clearance for the players. There was probably something wrong with their paperwork.