Shortly before the competition, the team was finally able to find a sponsor willing to take a chance on paying for the visa fees. Yet the sponsor would only pay for the people who had a good shot at getting an application approved under the travel ban. The team decided that Jorny and Jehad were the best candidates, since they had applied successfully for visas the year before the ban was in effect in order to attend exchange programs in the U.S. They boarded a flight to Tunisia to apply at the U.S. embassy (the U.S. does not have an embassy in Libya) and came straight to the competition in D.C. after getting visa approval.