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