President Trump’s New Travel Ban: Collective Punishment of the Iranian People that Betrays American Values
By Morad Ghorban and Jasmin Ramsey
In his recent address to the UN General Assembly and statement on his administration’s Iran policy, President Donald Trump drew a clear distinction between the “good people of Iran” and their government, which has “suppressed its own people.” Unfortunately, the rhetoric differentiating the Iranian people from the state does not match the policy.
On September 24, the White House issued a third travel ban, indefinitely blocking the vast majority of immigrant and nonimmigrant travel by Iranian nationals to the US. With this proclamation, which also targets five other mainly Muslim-majority nations, the US is engaging in the collective punishment of millions — without any clear US national security rationale.
On October 17, just hours before the ban was scheduled to go into effect, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked it with a temporary restraining order. The next day, a federal judge in Maryland granted a preliminary injunction.
The American people have been holding President Trump accountable through the legal system, demanding he provide evidence to support the claim that blacklisting the people of eight nations will somehow make America safer.
However, like the previous rulings, the ban has only been temporarily suspended, and could go into effect the moment a higher court rules in favor of the Trump administration’s arguments. The battle isn’t over yet.
The Trump administration argues that the Iranian government sponsors terrorism and doesn’t provide information about the identities of its nationals to US agencies. However, not one American has been killed on US soil due to terrorism by a person of Iranian descent. To the contrary, the people of Iran held candle light vigils and moments of silence to commemorate the victims of 9/11 and Iranian Americans were amongst the victims and first responders in San Bernardino.
The second premise is also flawed. According to immigration policy analyst David Bier, applicants bear the burden of proof in the visa process. “If they cannot prove their identity and eligibility, visa adjudicators can simply deny them on an individual basis,” he wrote in the Washington Post. There is nothing to suggest that imposing a sweeping ban on all Iranians will somehow improve this process.
If the ban is intended to reaffirm the US government’s opposition to the Iranian government’s support of groups on its foreign terrorist organizations list, then the question arises: why issue a travel ban that only negatively impacts the Iranian people, who have nothing to do with terrorism?
The same question applies to Americans of Iranian descent, who are hit hardest by the ban, despite having established themselves as productive members of US society, especially in the fields of technology, and who produce more scientists and engineers than any other country on the travel ban list.
In a statement marking the Persian New Year, President Trump himself acknowledged Iranian-Americans as “one of the most successful immigrant groups in our country’s contemporary history.”
According to a 2017 public opinion survey of Iranian Americans, nearly 90 percent have family in Iran and almost one-third of respondents receive family and friends from the country as visitors at least every two or three years.
Of the estimated 90,000 visas issued in 2016 to nationals of the eight countries singled out by the proclamation, over 60 percent went to Iranian nationals. President Trump’s travel ban will prevent existing Iranian families from uniting while disrupting the beginning of new ones.
“It is devastating,” US Navy veteran Mohammed Jahanfar told PBS News after learning his soon-to-be wife would be barred from traveling to the US. “There should be no reason why my fiancée, who is an educated person in Iran, who has a master’s degree, why we cannot be with each other. I cannot wrap my head around it.”
In imposing a broad ban on Iranians, the Trump administration has also barred democracy and human rights activists from visiting the US. The American government should welcome these brave actors, already under threat of arbitrary travel restrictions by their own government.
Instead, the White House has vindicated the arguments of hardline factions in the Iranian government who point to the US as an unrelenting enemy of the Iranian people. These actors, who have long sought to the keep Iran isolated from the West, applauded the travel ban as an unexpected gift.
With this broad, nationality-based ban of almost all immigrant and non-immigrant entry by Iranians, the US is not only antagonizing millions of Iranians who — despite some hardline officials’ best efforts — distinguish the American people from the US policies they may disagree with. It is also betraying the fundamental American principles of justice, equality before the law, and individual worth and merit.
Rather than building roadblocks between the US and Iran and discouraging constructive engagement between the two peoples, the US should be working to break them down. Failing to do so only aids the hardliners’ attempts to keep Iranian citizens isolated from the world.
President Trump’s new travel ban is collective punishment of millions of people based on where they were born. If the administration is determined to ignore the loud and clear arguments against its discriminatory nature by civil and human rights organizations, Congress must work to override the order, which betrays American values without serving American interests.
Jasmin Ramsey is the deputy communications director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
Morad Ghorban is the director of government affairs and Policy for the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA).
