Visa bans, U.S. strikes derail future of Iranian students seeking to study in America

Iranian university students who planned to study in the United States said their university career had been derailed by the Trump administration’s visa ban on people in their country.

Mohamad Enayati, a 28-year-old student in civil engineering, said that he had spent years trying to obtain a visa to study in the United States, instructing his family with each rejection and losing contact with friends along the way. The navigation of an already long visa process for Iranian students had been quite difficult, he said, only for his future to be thrown into the limbo by the ban, then the American bombing of Iranian nuclear sites this weekend.

“My parents are really injured to see me after what I experienced,” said Enayati. “My only plan was to study and get a doctorate in the United States. If it does not happen after all, I had trouble, after all that I have experienced – I really can’t imagine.”

Students said, however, that by blocking their studies in the United States, the Trump administration unjustly portrays the Iranians with a large brush, confusing them with the regime they live.

“We cannot be punished because of the place we come from, the place we were born,” said Hadis Abbasian, an Iranian cancer researcher who has been waiting for his visa for months. “It was not our choice.”

The State Department has pointed out NBC news on a list of exceptions limited to the prohibition, which includes visas for ethnic and religious minorities faced with persecution in Iran, as well as individuals adopted by American citizens and participants in certain major sporting events.

“The State Department is committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by respecting the highest standards of national security and public security through our visa process,” said a spokesperson for the State Department.

On Saturday, the United States struck the main Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, degenerating a military conflict that started in mid-June when Israel attacked Iran, saying that it was trying to stop it to be able to produce nuclear weapons. More recently, after the United States has helped negotiate a ceasefire that entered into force on Tuesday, the supreme Iranian chief of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a televised speech on Thursday, breaking a week’s silence. In the speech, Khamenei won the victory over Israel and said that Iran had delivered a “slap in the face” in the United States

American strikes occurred for weeks after Trump announced in a proclamation at the beginning of the month that Iran would be part of 12 countries whose nationals would be entirely restricted to enter the other seven American countries, including Cuba, Laos and Venezuela, are under partial travel restrictions.

The proclamation said that many of the countries on the list had refused to accept the repatriation of their nationals, while others had high visa rates. In the case of Iran, the administration said that the entry of its nationals had been suspended because it is a “godfather of terrorism”.

“Iran does not cooperate regularly with the American government to identify security risks, is the source of important terrorism in the world and has failed to accept its removable nationals,” said the proclamation.

White House spokesman Abigail Jackson told NBC News earlier this month that Trump’s policy was “best interest of the American people and their security.”

Enayati said he was discouraged by the prohibition of the visa – an emotion that only increased after the recent American strikes. Enayati, who started the visa process in 2023, had awaited a doctorate impatiently. Post at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He said he had endured half a dozen refusal to apply for a visa. Her seventh and last request was placed in administrative treatment by the United States Embassy where she has remained for more than a year, he said.

“Trump’s travel ban has come and has ruined everything,” he said. “I really want to live the American dream.”

After paying money and time in the request and visa process, Enayati said it was difficult to entertain any possible future that does not include education in the United States

“I do not understand to prohibit us,” said Enayati, who currently lives in Iran. “We all have a problem with the Iranian regime, but we are only ordinary people.”

Since the school year of 2023-24, 12,430 Iranian students have been enrolled in American universities. The share of the student lion continued his studies in STEM, in particular in engineering,

Amy Malek, president of the Iranian and Persian study program of the Gulf at Oklahoma State University, said that Iranian students have long been subjected to particularly long treatment deadlines and an intensive examination when it comes to obtaining visas. She said the demography was once the largest proportion of international students in the late 1970s, reaching a peak of 51,310 students in the United States, however, due to geopolitical tensions, those of Iran have experienced additional screening and restrictions for decades, she said.

A law under the Obama administration, for example, denied visas for Iranian students whose studies are preparing them for the energy or nuclear sectors in their country of origin. And under the first Trump administration, Iran was one of the seven major Muslim countries whose nationals were prohibited from entering the United States, the ban was lifted under Joe Biden in 2021.

Today, Iranian students often experience much longer waiting times than those of other countries, the visa process sometimes taking months to years – several times longer than the average waiting of days to weeks. But, said Malek, many in search of education in the United States have historically have few links with political activism or oppose the ruling theocracy of Iran.

“There is a long-term misunderstanding, or perhaps reluctance, to consider Iranian citizens as separated from their government,” said Malek. “I think that the American government lacks opportunities to support the type of change they claim to want for Iran when they undermine the ability of Iranian students to study abroad.”

Abbasian, the cancer researcher, planned to start her program this year at the University of Missouri. She also declared that her studies had always remained strictly academic rather than political. With the current conflict and the ban on visas threatening the future of students, restrictions could block opportunities for a generation of scientists, in particular those who may not have the means or time to wait for the indefinite prohibition, or whose test results expire while the prohibition is in force. Some students will have to use their studies in other countries or stay in Iran. For Abbasian, she said that she was determined to learn in the specific program of the University of Missouri and that she did not want to abandon this goal.

Abbasian, who said that she was in shock for days because of the restrictions, said that she was determined to find her way in the United States, speaking for those who are in her position and keeping the hope that the prohibition be lifted at a given time.

“No matter how long it takes, one day I will be in the United States,” she said. “I’m going to start my dreams. I believe in my dreams. “