On the 18th of December, 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, was impeached by a vote in the House of Representatives. Contrary to popular belief, a president being impeached is NOT the same as them being removed from office. Donald Trump will face trial in the Senate, who will determine whether he is unfit enough to be removed from office. Since 2017, citizens of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya have been banned from entering the United States. While the ban officially exempts those who are visiting immediate relatives as well as international students, large amounts of international students from Iran were recently denied boarding to their flights because their visas were cancelled. If Trump is removed from office, the travel ban will remain, and Mike Pence will most definitely uphold it. However, with the 2020 election coming up, it is up to us, the American people, to ask our democratic candidates the following question: Will you unconditionally repeal the un-American Muslim Ban?
Currently, congress is preparing a bill called the National Origin Based Anti-discrimination for Nonimmigrants Act, whose sponsors include candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Said act will prevent any type of nationality based refusal of entry to the US.
While the ban is aimed at Muslim majority nations, the impact of the ban can be felt in our own community here in Sonoma County. The county is home to a sizable population of Iranians, the group hit the hardest by the ban. Local resident Aida Dargahi helped her brother in law apply for a B-2 visa to visit her family in Petaluma in 2017, and he came very close to receiving his visa to travel to California. However, the travel ban hit the Tehran based engineer, who neither received a visa nor a refund of his $160, a significant sum for someone living in Iran. At Sonoma State University, a similar narrative exists. The electrical engineering department is run by Fareed Farahmand, an immigrant from Iran, and employs multiple hardworking Iranian professors who work hard every day to make this country a better, smarter place. Farahmand himself expressed his frustration at the travel ban, claiming that it has greatly reduced the arrival of Iranian international students, who are known for being hardworking scholars. My own father arrived in the United States in 1978 from Iran as an international student, completing high school and going on to graduate from San Francisco State University. He currently holds a PhD and works as a professor, educating and enlightening the youth of our county. Had there been a travel ban in place in 1978, he would not be here today, making a contribution to the society of the United States, a nation founded and advanced by immigrants.