A Nigerian software engineer claims he was handed a written test by a US border officer at New York’s JFK airport to prove his tech credentials.
Tech test for Nigerian software engineer
A software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, is claiming that he was made to sit a written test by US airport immigration officers because they weren’t convinced he was telling the truth about his skills.
According to social networking site LinkedIn, Celestine Omin, 28, landed in New York’s JFK airport last Sunday after a 24-hour flight from Nigeria.
Mr Omin is employed by Andela, a tech start-up with offices in New York, Lagos, Nairobi and San Francisco.
The firm says it recruits “the most talented developers on the African continent” and connects them with tech employers in the US for potential job vacancies. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg visited Andela’s office in Lagos last year.
Mr Omin had reportedly been granted a short-term visa to work with First Access, a financial technology company in New York’s Manhattan district.
After being asked a series of questions by a US Customs and Border Protection officer, he was taken into a room for further checks.
“Your visa says you are a software engineer. Is that correct?” an officer is reported to have asked Mr Omin.
He says he was then given a piece of paper and a pen and told to answer these two questions to prove he is actually a software engineer:
“Write a function to check if a Binary Search Tree is balanced.”
“What is an abstract class, and why do you need it?”
Mr Omin told LinkedIn it seemed to him the questions had been “Googled” by “someone with no technical background”.
He said later on Twitter that he was “too tired to even think”, and told the officer they could “talk about other computer science concepts”.
After he handed back his answers, he was told by the officer that they were wrong. He said he presumed he was required to provide “the Wikipedia definition” for the questions.
However, he was even more surprised a little later when the officer told him he was “free to go”.
“Look, I am going to let you go, but you don’t look convincing to me,” said the officer, according to Mr Omin.
“I didn’t say anything back. I just walked out.”
He later found out that border protection officers had phoned Andela to verify his story.
The BBC has approached the Customs and Border Protection department for a comment but has yet to receive a reply.
Nigeria is not one of the seven countries included in US President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration pause. However, the African country has been struggling with the threat of terrorism in recent times, in particular from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
Oh no the f**k they didn’t. What a set of shit house dem be.
The man say him had to give Wikipedia answers or they would think anything else wrong! :hammer
:ngakak
They are the most disgusting set of government workers especially the women. I cannot stand dealing with them
The women are straight up dog sh#%!! Many women no fi get authority.
Truth is, nuff a de workers get by on aminimal GPA to earn the required degree for the job. Some come from the military and neither kniw the good dam laws pertaining to the field they power tripping in…lol
Look war trumpazee started I wonder if them give the white European them all kind of questions to some of them custom agents is glad they can bother people of color without any problems now I hope bad karma teach them
A friend of mine was born in Jamaica and left as a child. Raised in NY from she was 10, completely legal US citizen now and a doctor too. I mean a surgeon. Top in her field. She had to make a quick visit to see her sick mother. On returning to NYC, she was challenged by officials and refused entry. She had to pass her business phone to them to call the hospital where she worked and where patients were waiting for her to return to do their operations before they would let her in.
She was sent to the backroom for document verification. They could have simply call HR. If she’s a citizen, why the doubt?
Di Cheetos has given border patrol and immigration God like powers. I wonder a who coulda get mi set foot in dat nation now. I wish those who have to live and do business there all the best.
As if Zuckerberg never did a cuss enough, dem gi him one more reason fi raise di roof.
Ove th years him woulda talk out, but everyday Zuckerberg a cuss Trump to rass, mi never di white bwoy hav suh much anger inna him!