January 31, 2017

Acting Secretary Philip H. Rosenfelt

Office of the Secretary of Education

U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202

RE: Petition to Act Swiftly Against Banning International Students and Academics from Entering the United States for 90 Days Pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order

Dear Mr. Rosenfelt,

We, the undersigned student rights, human rights advocates, members of professional institutions, petition the Department of Education to act swiftly against President Trump’s new executive order (“EO”) that was signed on January 27, 2017, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The EO has suspended the entry of both “immigrants and nonimmigrants” from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. This blanket entry ban has now dismantled the dreams of thousands of bright minds with valid student or work visas. They, undoubtedly, include both newly admitted international students to U.S. colleges and universities and those returning students, faculty, and staff. We would like to share with you some of the most unimaginable stories that have come from these affected students. While reading their stories, we ask you to keep in mind that proper access to Internet is a luxury in most areas of these banned countries. It may take a full day for an applicant to fill out a school application. Please also be mindful of the fact that the average salary of Iranian families is about $470 per month. In Syria, that amount is reduced to around $50 per month. And here in the U.S., the average application fee for admission to colleges and universities is around $41.[1] So the entire month of a salary can be spent by an Iranian student in order to apply to at least 10 colleges or universities.

• Niki Mossafer Rahmati,[2] 18, is an undergraduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With her current multiple-entry student visa, Nikki travelled to Iran to visit her family. And now because of the EO, she is banned from returning to the U.S. to continue her education.
• Mahmoud Hassan[3] is an 18-year-old Syrian national from Damascus. He still cannot recall how times he has read his acceptance letter with scholarship from MIT. The school’s Admissions Committee referred to Mahmoud as one of “the most talented and promising students in one of the most competitive applicant pools in the history of the Institute." He was counting days until this fall to pursue an engineering degree, but now his ultimate dream of being at the Cambridge campus is completely washed away by the EO.
• Ali Abdi is a PhD student in anthropology at Yale University. He is currently overseas, conducting his research. And with his student F1 visa, he is unsure he can return to the country as result of the 90-day ban on Iranian nationals.
• Shadi Heidarifar[4] is a 23-year-old philosophy student from Tehran, Iran. For more than a year, she worked part-time in a bookstore while pursuing her bachelor's degree in order to afford paying the application fees for admission to a master’s degree program in philosophy in the U.S. And Shadi recently got accepted to the New York University’s Philosophy Department. As a result of the new executive order, she may not make it to class this fall.

The ban has not only disrupted the bright future of students like Niki, Mahmoud, Ali, and Shadi, many international students and faculty who currently reside in the U.S. are left with nothing but to abandon their families overseas, their educational and career endeavor, including abroad research projects and international conferences because of worries they may not be allowed to re-enter. “It’s very, very disruptive to students who are in the middle of training; it’s very disruptive to master’s and postdoc students who are involved in experiments, who are doing research. It’s not just them who are affected, it’s their research project that is affected,” said Lizbet Boroughs, associate vice president for federal relations for the Association of American Universities.[5] Here are some of the stories we have been able to gather from academics affected by the travel ban.

• Seradjeh[6] is an associate professor of physics at Indiana University. He was born in Tehran, lived eight years in Canada and currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana. He has dual citizenship from Iran and Canada. As the immigration ban came into place, Seradjeh was reluctant to travel abroad to join his research partner. “This effectively suspends my research trip until further notice. This research is funded partly through the National Science Foundation. It is unclear to me how or when I can take this trip or what other effects the executive order will have on my work,” said Seradjeh in an interview with the press.
• Nazanin Zinouri[7] is an Iranian young woman who recently earned her Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Clemson University. During her studies, she was awarded the Janine Anthony Bowen Graduate Fellow award for her outstanding academic performance in her field. Since her graduation, she has worked at a tech company in South Carolina for the past six months under a work visa. She recently traveled to Iran for a family visit and now is unable to return to the U.S. for at least 90 days.
• Mazdak Pourabdollah Tootkaboni and his wife, Arghavan Louhghalam,[8] are professors at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. After their weeklong sustainable engineering conference in Marseille, France, they were detained by the U.S. border protection officers, despite their permanent residency status in the U.S.

By banning international students and academics, even for one day, we are not only abridging their given rights to pursue their education and career goals, we are blocking their innovative ideas, invaluable expertise, their contributions to the advancement of our society in almost every aspect, from science and technology, to engineering, to our linguistic and cultural diversity. In 2015-2016 academic year, a total of 1,043,839 international students studied in the U.S., with 1,514 from Libya, 12,269 from Iran, 1,901 from Iraq, 783 from Syria, 253 from Sudan, 35 from Somalia, and 599 from Yemen.[9] Surely, majority of these students are now severely affected by the administration’s sweeping travel ban.

President Trump in the EO views this sweeping ban as necessary to “ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals.” How can blocking the best minds of these countries of concern help us prevent the entry of terrorists and criminals? Make no mistake that the majority of these students and academics will one day be our allies at the forefront of fighting against extremism, not by weapons of war, but with their forces of progressive knowledge and ideas. As Nelson Mandela once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Global terrorism and extremism knows no border. It is a battle of ideas. So let us not alienate those who can most effectively help our country and the world in this fight. Let us reaffirm that the right to education should not give into fear. Instead, we must use our diverse knowledge and expertise to overcome fear.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, urge you to speak out against President Trump’s sweeping ban on international students and academics. We ask you to take any action at your disposal to urge Congress and the White House to reconsider the EO by allowing affected international students and academics to enter the country.

Respectfully submitted,

[1] Colleges that Charge Students the Most to Apply, U.S. News (Dec. 1, 2015)http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-....

[2] Trump blocks student’s return to MIT, The Tech (Jan. 29, 2017) https://thetech.com/2017/01/29/immigration-order-blocks-students-from-mit.

[3] A Syrian Teen Was Headed to MIT and Then Came the Ban, CNN (Jan. 29, 2017) http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/us/mit-syria-student-ban-trnd/.

[4] I’m an Iranian Woman Whose Dream is to Study in America. Here is My Message for Trump, Mother Jones (Jan. 29, 2017) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/iranian-student-trump-immigration.

[5] Universities Grappling with Impact of Trump’s Immigration Ban, Washington Post (Jan. 29, 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/uni...

[6] These Are the Faces of Trump’s Ban, CNN (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/immigration-ban-stories/.

[7] ‘No One Warned Me’: This Clemson Ph.D. Grad is Stuck in Iran, CNN (Jan. 29. 2017) http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/us/nazanin-zinouri-travel-ban-trnd/.

[8] As Protests Roiled, Professors Who Were Detained at Logan Airport Waited, Boston Globe (Jan. 29, 2017) https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/29/protests-roiled-detained-professors-waited/3SaGUFtYgYqinYcJVheJzL/story.html.

[9] Institute of International Education, http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-... (last visited Jan. 31, 2017).