BY MICHELE MOGHTADER
Nasim Sabounchi, a 21year-old Iranian was ecstatic when she received her acceptance letter to Virginia Tech’s PhD program in 2002. Nasim’s excitement soon turned to worry as she thought of how she had to be away from all she knew for the duration of her studies. “I really had to ask myself, ‘Is this something I want to do?’ I had the funding, I’d been accepted, but in a way, I felt like I was coming to prison for five years.”
Like the many Iranians who come to the US to further their studies, Nasim knew she would receive a single-entry visa. If she left the US, she would have to apply for a visa again. This process is unpredictable at best—it can take up to a week or three months, a risk most students are not willing to take. As a result, most Iranian students that come to the United States accept the fact that they will not be able to go home during the entire duration of their study.
With the support of her friends and family, she decided to attend Virginia Tech and is now in her fourth year of studies. “I know so many people who weren’t able to see their mothers and fathers before they died because of this policy and I just keep thinking to myself, ‘God, I hope this doesn’t happen to me.’ Sometimes, you just want your family right next to you.”
Nasim is one of the Iranian students studying in the US that has taken matters into her own hands. Perhaps becoming more American that she thought, she along with several other students organized a small group and received a statement of support from their Virginia Tech’s graduate school calling for the change in policy. Not knowing how to take the issue further than they school they turned to the DC-based advocacy group, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
NIAC advocates for Iranian Americans on Capitol Hill. One of the ways it does so is by conducting civic participation workshops tailored for the Iranian-American community. “Since our civic participation workshop with NIAC, we’ve developed a lot,” said Nasim. The students tried to contact their Congressional Representative, Rick Boucher numerous times and representative went frequently to his Town Hall meetings. However, he never answered their calls. Like the many Democrats unseated in the 2010 elections, Boucher lost his bid for reelection last year and the group is now trying to contact their new Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith.
With the backing of students like Nasim and the close to 3,700 students in the “Multiple Entry US Visa for Iranian Students Group”, NIAC tried to lobby Congress to change the law. Jamal Abdi, policy director at NIAC, said they worked with the Senate and tried to insert language into the Defense Authorization bill, which would have “required the White House to evaluate and report how the U.S. can increase educational exchanges with Iranian students and expand the number and types of visas available for Iranians to study in the U.S.”
In the midst of a legislative frenzy that included repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Dream Act, which failed to pass, and a tight deadline to pass the Defense Authorization bill, the section which was entitled “Iran Engagement Report” did not receive enough support in Congress. “The supporters who were in the Arms Services Committee said that they ran out of time,” said Abdi. Another reason for its failure could just be pure politics, the bill was entitled the “Iran Engagement Report.”
“Nothing is going to come out of Congress,” admits Abdi. “So we are looking to the administration to ease some of the burdens.”
Since 1982, Iran has been on the State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism list, along with Cuba, Sudan, and Syria. As a result, citizens from these countries receive single entry visas. According to the State Department website, “Current visa validities are based on reciprocity for Americans traveling to an applicant’s home country (example: an Iranian’s visa validity to the U.S. is 3 months just as an American traveling to Iran’s visa validity is 3 months).”
State Department officials cite the law of reciprocity on why they cannot change the Visa law for Iranian students. However, according to Abdi, the US gives far more visas to Iranian students than vice versa. “It’s clear that the President understands and realizes the importance to have young Iranians come to the US, but the policy hasn’t gone the entire way.”
During his March 2010 address to the Iranian people for the Iranian New Year, Barack Obama said, “We will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people. For instance, by increasing opportunities for educational exchanges so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities.”
President Obama’s words however have not been followed by the concrete actions to make it easier for Iranian studying in America. Students say they still feel like they are caught in the crossfire between the two governments. “If President Obama knows that the Iranian people are different than the government, then why don’t the laws reflect that?” said Ali Masoud, a first year SIPA student.
The issue has died down for the time being as the group has faced its first set back with legislative defeat in December. One common trend among groups calling for changes in immigration or visa laws is that the turn over rate of active members is rather high. Once someone finally does receive their green card they seem to lose all interest in the issue. But what remains clear is that there will constantly be waves of Iranian students arriving to the US now able to learn and carry on the work of the group.
“It’s the fact that you can’t go back that makes you want to go back even more, ” said Roozbeh Esfahani, a first-year PhD candidate of Iranian studies at Columbia University who has just recently joined the Facebook Group.
“Perhaps I don’t have access to all of the information, but I’ve never heard of an Iranian student coming here and then becoming a terrorist,” he said with a sense of exasperation.