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U.S. bars Derry fighter

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

An official at the American Consulate in Belfast told the 24-year-old junior middleweight prospect that he’d overstayed his most recent visit to the U.S.
The popular Duddy, who turned pro in New York last September and is undefeated in four bouts since, was seeking a sports visa.
He’d arrived in New York last April on the Visa waiver program, which allows citizens of some 27 countries, including Britain and Ireland, to travel to the U.S. for up to 90 days without visas, and returned home on Jan. 20 to get his paperwork in order.
“We were led to believe that even if I overstayed, it should be OK,” Duddy, who sought the counsel of a Queens immigration lawyer before making the trip, said from his Derry City home last Sunday.
The U.S. consulate, however, ruled otherwise and rejected his visa application in a brief interview last Friday.
According to U.S. immigration laws, people who overstay their visas by more than 180 days can be barred from returning to the United States for three years.
Duddy was initially gutted by the decision, but his spirits were buoyed when his mother and the mother of his Maspeth, Queens-based, girlfriend sought the intervention of Nobel Laureate John Hume and his wife, who also live in Derry.
Efforts are also under way in New York to appeal the consulate’s decision.
“My spirits are a lot higher now,” the charismatic fighter said. “All I want to do is to get back [to New York] and get started again.”
A former All-Irish senior amateur champion, Duddy is staying in shape by working out at his old gym in Derry, the Ring ABC.
Immensely talented and with knockout power in both hands, Duddy’s last match was a fourth-round TKO of Philadelphia’s Ken Hock at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., on Jan. 9.
Plans were afoot for him to fight in Boston on March 12 before he left for Ireland.

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