Tibetan women’s soccer team denied visas to visit Texas for Dallas Cup tournament – Dallas News

Childers wrote that her team is scattered all over India, where the women arrived as refugees from Tibet. The autonomous region of China — known as “the roof of the world” for its mountain ranges — has a volatile history with the government in Beijing.

When the women came out of the embassy without visas last week, they looked at their coach for answers, Childers wrote. They had carried folders with their passports, invitation letters and supporting documents, according to the coach.

She described lives already scarred by heartbreak — some of the women had trekked the Himalayas in the dark and left families behind — and how a soccer trip to the U.S. was a flash of hope.

“This trip was going to be the best damn thing to ever happen to these girls,” Childers wrote on a fundraising site.

According to the coach’s account, an officer at the American Embassy in Nepal asked Childers to give her a reason the women wouldn’t stay in the U.S.

The U.S. Department of State press office said it doesn’t discuss individual visa cases. It said in a prepared statement that the U.S. continues to recognize Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.

“What they said is we don’t have strong reasons to go to Dallas,” Jamyang Chotso, a team captain, told The Guardian. “But I think this is not the reason for them to reject us. [We] think the reason is they think we might run away when we reach there.”

Childers wrote on Facebook that the team had lost $5,000 in visa application fees and travel expenses.