The World Humanist Conference was scheduled for next year in Washington DC. I’ve been to this conference in Oxford in the past — it’s a good meeting, and I would have planned on attending. I can’t confidently travel abroad anymore because of the fucked up way the US handles security at airports. I’m even reluctant to do much domestic travel.
If I’m unwilling to travel, the shoe is also on the other foot — who would want to travel to the repressive hellhole that the US has become? So I was not surprised to get this email from Jen Scott of American Atheists.
As the Board Chair of American Atheists, I’m writing you today with some difficult news: Due to escalating threats to civil liberties, human rights, and international relations under the Trump Administration, the board and staff of American Atheists have withdrawn our organization as host of the 2026 World Humanist Congress, originally scheduled to be held next August in Washington, D.C.
The Board of Directors takes seriously our duty to ensure the safety of our members and the continued ability of American Atheists to carry out its mission. This decision was not made lightly. It comes after a thorough evaluation of our organization’s ability to successfully host and safely execute an event of this magnitude in the coming year, given the new and yet unfolding risks posed by the escalation of religious nationalism and the erosion of human rights in our country.
In just its first six months, the Trump Administration’s actions — including the deportation of legal immigrants, detentions and refusals of admission to visitors of the United States, and travel restrictions — have created an environment that is not only incompatible with our values but also inhospitable to members of our global secular community.
Already, our nation’s reputation abroad is plummeting. And fueled by fear of being detained, surveilled, or harassed at our borders, so, too, are the number of foreign arrivals. A significant majority of the potential attendees we surveyed expressed apprehension about the political climate and a reluctance or unwillingness to travel to D.C., including U.S. residents and key volunteers.
Our board and staff are also acutely aware that executive orders retributively targeting private and nonprofit entities the administration views as disloyal to its agenda present an existential threat to American Atheists, our members, and our partner organizations.
Here’s the sobering truth: Under this administration, it is impossible for American Atheists to guarantee or even make reasonable assurances regarding the admissibility of international guests from key regions of the world, nor is it feasible for us to ensure the security of those who are granted entry to the United States or to mitigate against the still unknown events of the coming year.
The totality of these circumstances and the reality of this moment is deeply troubling. We are witnessing the dismantling of foundational freedoms and the weaponization of the state to stifle dissent, suppress civil society, and silence voices like ours. The repressive actions of this regime not only obstruct our ability to gather in peace but strike at the very heart of what our community stands for.
Of course, we are disappointed. But we are not deterred.
Together with our partners at Humanists International, we have responded to this challenge with agility, vision, and resolve to secure a new location. Today, we can happily announce the 2026 World Humanist Congress will take place August 7-9, 2026, in Ottawa, Canada.
It’s embarrassing to be a citizen of the United States anymore.
Would you like to visit the US next year?
Spouse and I are avoiding travel to the US altogether because we have no confidence that one or other of us might not get stopped at the border. Spouse once held a green card, long since relinquished, but it still comes up on airport screenings occasionally — maybe just enough to trigger ICE’s current policy of arbitrary detention.
But now it’s here? (As in: local bus ride). We might even attend (though that depends on the speaker list — there are humanists I’ve no interest in rubbing shoulders with).
A women’s basketball team from Senegal had to leave a training workshop because 5 players, 2 coaches, and several support staff were refused entry into the country, in spite of having Visas and permits ready for months.
The Club World Cup games (FIFA soccer/futbol), expected to have been a huge draw for both international tourism and for minority people in America who enjoy soccer the most, are practically empty. Foreigners aren’t traveling in to see the games, and the fans aren’t showing up for fear of ICE and CBP.
Neither of these bode well for the upcoming Olympics and FIFA World Cup that were supposed to be hosted here. Already there are calls from the IOC to move the games elsewhere.
Have a Danish friend who was planning on going to a game convention in the US, but cancelled out of concern. I’m just glad they’re safe.
We were looking forward to attending the World Science Fiction Convention this year but have cancelled our plans. When Canadians are apprehensive about travelling to Seattle, you know something’s wrong.
And 2026 is in Anaheim so that’s off the table, too.
I remember how James Randi once lived in Toronto, Canada. He became an American citizen because he was disappointed in how our national police handled his props prior to a performance, and at the local papers’ dismissal of writing about the incident due to possible blowback from the authorities. His America is not one that he’d be as comfortable in, I suspect.
Plummeting? Huh, What!
Why does the USA even have a reputation to plummet any more anyway?
By now we should have hit rock bottom at zero and be digging a deep hole for ourselves.
I can’t imagine why anyone from outside the USA would come here right now.
I live here and every day it gets a little more scary and every day there is another dozen or so atrocities, most of which don’t make the now useless Mainstream Media.
To take just one example, the number of people kidnapped and disappeared by ICE isn’t known precisely. But people in the affected communities are now missing thousands of people. Thousands of people.
I’ve been speaking up and protesting a lot. That is a decision I had to make.
The worst that can happen is that I can be shot in the street by the army, secret police, paramilitary militias, or random MAGA terrorists.
Something already happening in places like…Minnesota and Los Angeles.
It is OK. I’m an old Boomer and no one is depending on me any more.
(Not actually true but close enough.)
We don’t have a choice but outsiders do. Why put yourself in harm’s way?
@spiderj:
At least Seattle allows virtual attendance, and the 2027 Worldcon is almost certainly going to be in Montreal (given that Tel Aviv withdrew its bid).
The US is now the worlds greatest banana republic.
@7 raven
Do they have a choice? There is nowhere on this planet where you are safe from the U.S. military or from our paramilitary goons.
The best they can hope for is that we screw up this post-9/11 late imperialist phase so badly that the U.S. is materially unable to influence global events afterward.
Remember when the orange idiot dropped a 1 million bomb on an airport during his first term for no reason other than to terrorize a smaller country?
Hitler was also a cowardly pos with an inferiority complex, just like every tyrant ever.
beholder, shame Trump got elected, eh?
If only a few more people had voted for his opponent!
But yes, USA is on the nose now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/views-us-trump-dip-sharply-many-allied-countries-rcna211805
“June 11, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT
By Ben Kamisar and Dylan Ebs
Views of the U.S. and confidence in its leader to handle world affairs have taken a dive in more than a dozen countries over the last year, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday and conducted over the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
These declines are most pronounced among residents in neighboring Mexico and Canada, which have been at the center of high-profile spats with the administration, as well as a handful of NATO countries (like Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands) amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Public sentiment about the U.S. has gone up in a few countries over the last year, most notably in Israel. But most of the two-dozen countries surveyed saw public opinion about the U.S. dip as Trump began his second term.”
(The warmongering ain’t helping, either)
An interesting point.
” Polling in every country except Indonesia began after Trump’s inauguration, but it was either concluded or close to done by Trump’s April 2 announcement of sweeping international tariffs. ”
I wonder what the figures would be now?
Wow, jrkkrideau.
I can’t believe you found “according to a poll from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday” confusing.
Wonder no more!
<clickety-click>
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/06/11/views-of-the-united-states/
@Erlend Meyer
No it’s not? “Banana republic” has a meaning beyond “country Americans don’t like”
Fascist goons aside, I think making a bunch of people sit in cramped conditions with a bunch of strangers to travel to sit in cramped conditions with another bunch of strangers still sounds like a great idea for spreading any viruses going
Would you like to visit the US next year?
Come, and bring plastic explosive.
John Morales @12
Oh wonderful, at least we have Israel. Or actually, they have US. What’s The Police song say? “I’ll be wrapped around your finger…”.
Bibi has come a long way since being a media darling during Desert Storm with his performative gas mask.
I attended the Humanist Conference in Oxford as well and enjoyed it a lot. One wall of the room I stayed in on Oxford Uni’s campus was made up of part of the wall that once surrounded the city of Oxford hundreds of years ago. I doubt D.C. could have topped that! It was also nice to meet PZ there and coincidentally walk to the station with him the next morning to catch the same train, though going to different destinations.
I visit the US every few years to do some shopping and see friends and family, but although I’m considering a visit later this year, I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better to wait another few years for a possible “regime change.”
Our former commenter Jadehawk was just in the US and had no problems, but a guy from Australia got detained for 12 hours, had his phone searched, and was deported back home. It’s random terror, and noone wants to take that risk.
The FIFA World Cup next year will take place, Trump and FIFA boss Infantino are essentially members of the same crime cartel. But don’t forget, we’re only 5 months into this lunacy, it’s another year until these large events are scheduled, a lot can happen until then.
I returned from a trip to Scotland last week. I had no problems reentering the U.S. I was born in Germany, and the biggest hurdle I experienced was the border patrol guy trying out a clumsy German phrase on me. I responded in German with a smile and got a nice ‘welcome home’ from him. Of course, unlike PZ, I’m a nobody. I’m not on anyone’s radar. I’ll wager the NSA or Bondi’s DoJ might have a file on you.