Committee of Concerned Scientists

An international non-profit organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars dedicated to protecting the human rights and scientific freedom of our colleagues around the world.

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CCS Requests WH Allow Iranian Students Who Were Turned Away from US to Return and Start Colleges

February 6, 2021

February 8, 2021

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Biden,

The Committee of Concerned Scientists is an independent organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars devoted to the protection and advancement of human rights and scientific freedom for colleagues all over the world. We write today to express our support for Iranian students Hamid Mohabbat, Pegah Karimi, Behzad Rezeai, and others who were suddenly and without warning, denied entry into the United States beginning in August 2019.

Pegah Karimi was denied entry in August 2019 after having arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport, with a valid student visa to pursue her graduate studies at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. Behzad Rezeai had a valid student visa to pursue a Doctorate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, but was denied entry that same month.

Hamid Mohabbat was turned back after arriving in Chicago’s O’Hare airport on January 10, 2020, where he was detained and interrogated for 19 hours before being sent back to Iran. He had been accepted, and was to be fully funded, by a joint Master’s and Ph.D. program in civil engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

These unexplained denials of entry threw the lives of many young scholars into chaos; many had spent thousands of dollars on flights before being informed at the last minute that they would not be allowed to enter the U.S. The academic institutions that accepted them were also left in a state of confusion.

In October 2019 we wrote to then Secretary of State Pompeo to express our confusion over these denials of entry for approved students of Iranian nationality. We requested clarification then, and we renew that request now, as to what policy changes with regard to students from Iran were enacted, and why. We now also write to urge you to adopt an approach that is more respectful of Iranian students and the institutions that have accepted them.

Scholars seeking education, and the universities that host them, should never become collateral damage of geopolitical disputes. We urge you to review these incidents, and, going forward, to allow these and other qualified and accepted Iranian students to attend the universities that have admitted them.

For the sake of future students and for the universities that wish to provide them with opportunities, it is imperative that rules and expectations are clearly explained, and that the rights of students to pursue their education be free from arbitrary and sudden policy changes.

We await an explanation of this matter, and we hope that any policy that has allowed for arbitrary denials of entry for Iranian students will be reversed.

Sincerely,

Cc:
Ron Klain
Chief of Staff
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Phone: 202-456-1414
@WHCOS

Filed Under: CCS Cases

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Co-chairs

Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University

Paul H. Plotz, M.D., Washington, DC

Walter Reich, George Washington University

Eugene Chudnovsky, Lehman College

Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College

Vice-chairs

Astronomy – Arno Penzias, New Enterprises Associates*

Biology – Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University

Chemistry – Zafra Lerman, MIMSAD Inc.

Computer Science – Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University

Computer Science – Jack Minker, University of Maryland, College Park

Engineering – Philip Sarachik, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering

Mathematics – Simon Levin, Princeton University

Medical Sciences – J. Joseph Blum, Duke University

Honorary Board Members

Nancy Andrews, Duke University

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*

Alan J. Bard, University of Texas

Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook

Raoul Bott (deceased), Harvard University

Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley

Stanley Deser, Brandeis University

Edward Gerjuoy, University of Pittsburg

David Gross, (2004 Nobel Prize in Physics), Kavil Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara*

Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University

Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*

James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Peter Lax, New York University

Louis Nirenberg, New York University

Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*

Honorary Board Members

John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*

Stuart Rice, University of Chicago

Sir Richard J. Roberts, (1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine), New England Biolabs*

Myriam Sarachick, City College of New York

Harold Scheraga, Cornell University

Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University

Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University

Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin*

Myrna Weissman, Columbia University

Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*

* Nobel laureate

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FURTHER DIRECTIONS

Committee of Concerned Scientists
Public Affairs and Administrative Office
PO Box 3708
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Carol Valoris, Executive Director
(202) 812-8074
carolvaloris@concernedscientists.org

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