MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Henrik ‘AdmiralBulldog’ Ahnberg was due to attend Dota 2’s The International tournament as part of its talent team, as a commentator and analyst. However, he’s been denied entry to the US, and is currently on his way home to Gothenburg, Sweden.
Ahnberg is a well known figure on the Dota circuit, as a popular Twitch streamer and former player. When explaining his reasons for being in the US to a customs officer, he was interviewed and subsequently denied entry to the country.
Ahnberg was trying to enter the country using a B1 visa, which is primarily used for tourism and business use. In a post online, he explains his own deal:
“I got contacted by valve(pgl) if I wanted to be part of ti7 and I of course said yes. Soon after that they asked me for passport and visa information which i provided,I have a b1/b2 visa. It’s for tourism and business, which I didn’t think much of I’m kinda there to do business? I should probably looked into more myself but I heard nothing more from valve or pgl so I assumed they reviewed it and thought it’s all good.
I got 2 hour sleep before our flight to Amsterdam because our flight was really early (6am) which is all good, I was planning on sleeping on the 10 hour flight there and i got a few hours more sleep on the plane but it’s airplane sleep so by the time we arrive im pretty sluggish and exhausted.
Then the US customs, it took around 1 hour 30 minutes to get up to the us custom officer where I told him I was here to work as a commentator on a tournament hosted by valve. He then led me a away to a little room filled with maybe 20 other people and asked me to wait for a few minutes.
Two hours later they call me up asking for more information and I just tell them exactly what I’m doing there, she tells me she has to do an interview with her but before that she needs to deal with the easier cases in the room so I have to wait an additional hour. During all this time and in this room you are not allowed to use any electronics so I couldn’t get in touch with valve to ask for help.”
He explains that the US Visa process was confusing, and that while he could have lied and said that he was just here to attend TI, “something seems wrong with that and it shouldn’t be necessary”
PCGamesN was first with the story, and they’ve got the details. Just click on the bold bit of text, won’t you?
