Last year 12,269 Iranian students studied at US universities, mostly at MA or PhD level; they and academics are likely to be the main victims of the revised order

Donald Trump’s revised executive order – which keeps a blanket travel ban on all Iranians – will punish a segment of Iranian society that is largely critical of the country’s regime, academics and analysts have warned.

The US president modified his previous travel ban on Monday by excluding Iraq from a previous list of seven predominantly Muslim countries. But nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are still subjected to restricting measures that include a suspension of visa issuance for at least 90 days.



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In Iran, the main victims of Trump’s order are likely to be highly talented students and academics, said Kamiar Alaei, an HIV specialist who was jailed for three years after visiting the US to attend academic conferences.

“A lot of Iranian students have already been admitted to MA and PhD programmes and even have secured university funding but now can’t come to this country,” Alaei, the director of the global of institute for health and human rights at the State University of New York at Albany, told the Guardian.



Alaei’s pioneering research on HIV treatment and prevention programmes earned international recognition, but he was held for three years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison after attending international HIV treatment programmes and conferences held in the US.

Trump’s ban would have a similar chilling effect on international study, he warned.

“University professors, scholars and doctors who engage in mutual academic work have also been hit. This order would only harm exchange of knowledge and science,” he said.

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Last year, 12,269 Iranian students studied in the US, according to data from the Institute of International Education, compared with 5,085 from the six other countries, including Iraq, which has now been excluded.



“You can hardly go to any American university and not find an Iranian scholar there. Iranian doctors also have a significant presence in the US medical sector across the whole country,” said Alaei.

Eighty-eight per cent of Iranian students in the US are studying either an MA or a PhD degree. Per capita by city, Tehran comes third in the list of foreign students studying postgraduate degrees in the US, Alaei said.

According to Alaei, most Iranians who succeed in obtaining a visa are either students, scholars or those visiting relatives. “They belong to a segment of Iranian society that either have a problem with the ruling establishment in Iran or are willing to have a free society,” he said. “This order harms those who can actually make positive changes in Iran.”

Saeed Barzin, a London-based seasoned Iran watcher, echoed Alaei, saying that unlike sanctions targeting Iran’s military machine, the executive order will alienate the country’s middle class, which is generally perceived to be highly critical of the ruling system.

“This travel ban will instigate enmity and grudge between the two nations,” he said. “When we are talking about sanctions, for example, people recognise that they are in place targeting the Revolutionary Guards, but this ban is different – it is targeting everyone and people know that. This travel ban won’t result in people blaming the Iranian government, it will result in people blaming the US because it’s unfair and discriminatory.”

Barzin said people in Iran could not understand why the countries that produced most 9/11 terrorists were not targeted, while all Iranians were. “American officials said they would differentiate between the Iranian state and the Iranian people, [but] this order shows the complete opposite.”

The 90-day ban is widely expected to extend indefinitely for Iranians because Tehran is unlikely to cooperate with Washington in counter-terror efforts.



In Washington, the state department’s spokesman, Mark Toner, tied himself in knots on Tuesday to explain this paradox. When pressed on the presumed target of the order, he said: “This is not about the Iranian people, it’s not directed to them, but when you’re considering the safety and security of the American people here in the United States, you have to hold them in a different class.”



Jamal Abdi, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, said there has been a spike in hate crimes against people believed to be Muslim or Middle Eastern. Last month, it emerged that a man charged with first-degree murder for shooting an Indian man in a Missouri restaurant had told a 911 dispatcher that he had shot “two Iranian people”.



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“Make no mistake: the new Muslim ban is still an unconstitutional ban that targets individuals based on their religion and nationality. And it is still a ban that undermines rather than enhances America’s security,” Abdi said.



“Donald Trump is turning the American dream into the American nightmare. There are already countless stories of Iranian Americans who have had to cancel weddings, who haven’t been able to have their parents visit to meet their newborn grandchildren in America, and who don’t know when they will see their parents and siblings and friends again. There are stories of Iranian students, hopeful about the opportunity to study in the US and make their contribution to this country, who are now in indefinite limbo.”





















Additional reporting by Julian Borger