Al Jazeera News :
Ali, a 33-year-old Iranian-American engineer and tech start-up consultant living in Los Angeles, has no idea when he might see his mother again.
Ali’s mother, a 66-year-old retired school principal in Tehran who typically visits the United States once a year, is prohibited from entering the country for the next 90 days under President Donald Trump’s landmark executive action on immigration.
The order bans citizens from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen from entering the US. Trump’s executive order also bans refugees for the next 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.
When Ali, who was born in Tehran, turned on the television to learn the news on January 27, he says he was both stunned and devastated.
“I feel [utter sadness],” he said over the telephone from an Iranian restaurant in California.
“It’s baffling … It is upsetting to me, it is upsetting to my wife and it is upsetting to my family. They live their own lives, they come visit for a short time and then they go back. They don’t pose a threat to anybody, they don’t cause harm to anyone, they love the culture in the US.”
Ali, who has been a US citizen since 2013, and who had arrived in 2002 to study, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal in the US and for his family in Iran. His older sister also lives in Orange County and works in press relations.
Not long after moving to the US, Ali met Deborah, a writer and philanthropist from California. They married in 2008. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at California State University and later
completed his master of business. He eventually became the vice president of a tech start-up in California before becoming a consultant.
“America is great,” he explained. “It is the land of opportunity. You have the opportunity to do anything, to become anyone, to be successful, to contribute to society and I feel like I as a citizen and my wife as a citizen, we have done that. We have aspired to be successful. We contribute to society. I feel like with these executive actions it’s thinning that shining city on the hill – the promised land that everybody looks to.”
Ali, a 33-year-old Iranian-American engineer and tech start-up consultant living in Los Angeles, has no idea when he might see his mother again.
Ali’s mother, a 66-year-old retired school principal in Tehran who typically visits the United States once a year, is prohibited from entering the country for the next 90 days under President Donald Trump’s landmark executive action on immigration.
The order bans citizens from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen from entering the US. Trump’s executive order also bans refugees for the next 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.
When Ali, who was born in Tehran, turned on the television to learn the news on January 27, he says he was both stunned and devastated.
“I feel [utter sadness],” he said over the telephone from an Iranian restaurant in California.
“It’s baffling … It is upsetting to me, it is upsetting to my wife and it is upsetting to my family. They live their own lives, they come visit for a short time and then they go back. They don’t pose a threat to anybody, they don’t cause harm to anyone, they love the culture in the US.”
Ali, who has been a US citizen since 2013, and who had arrived in 2002 to study, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal in the US and for his family in Iran. His older sister also lives in Orange County and works in press relations.
Not long after moving to the US, Ali met Deborah, a writer and philanthropist from California. They married in 2008. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at California State University and later
completed his master of business. He eventually became the vice president of a tech start-up in California before becoming a consultant.
“America is great,” he explained. “It is the land of opportunity. You have the opportunity to do anything, to become anyone, to be successful, to contribute to society and I feel like I as a citizen and my wife as a citizen, we have done that. We have aspired to be successful. We contribute to society. I feel like with these executive actions it’s thinning that shining city on the hill – the promised land that everybody looks to.”
