Former Iran conscripts say US blocks them from travel
LOS ANGELES — Two years ago, Leili Ghazi quit studying biomedical engineering in Iran and seized the chance to travel to the United States to build a new life for herself and her parents.
Now, the 22-year-old is separated indefinitely from her family because her father performed required military service more than two decades ago as a conscript for a branch of the Iranian armed forces that the U.S. government years later declared a foreign terrorist organization. The designation bars anyone associated with the group from traveling to the United States, including her dad.
“He had to do office work and work on plans of buildings,” said Ghazi, who has been anxious and depressed since moving to Southern California. She expected her parents to eventually join her but later learned her father would be forced to stay behind. “He hasn’t done any activity of going to war or anything. It was not anything like that.”
It has long been a challenge for Iranians to travel to the United States and visa applicants often wait months or years for background checks to clear. But since the Trump administration designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization in 2019, it has become all but impossible for anyone who served in the branch, even as a conscript and in a non-combat role, to obtain a visa to travel to the United States.
Many Iranian Americans and their families hoped the Biden administration would reverse course on the designation so those who served as conscripts could still travel. They note Iranian men are compelled to serve if they want to obtain passports to leave the country, have no say over what branch they’re assigned to and largely perform basic tasks such as painting or office jobs.
But their hopes were dashed when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in late April that barring changes in Iran there was no plan to remove the designation. He acknowledged in remarks before U.S. lawmakers that those most affected are the conscripts while “the people who are the real bad guys have no intention of travel.”
“There should be exceptions, and right now we don’t have exceptions,” said Ally Bolour, a Los Angeles immigration attorney whose firm has sued over how the designation is applied. “It is unfair for the U.S. government to just throw a towel over everything and just lump everybody together. That’s lazy.”
The U.S. has designated a lengthy list of foreign terror organizations dating back to the 1990s, including Hamas and Peru’s Shining Path. But the groups are almost entirely private militias, not state-run entities, like IRGC, that enlist conscripts under the law.
The secretary of state designates the groups in consultation with the attorney general and treasury secretary, and with congressional review, and can also revoke designations. For example, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was listed as a foreign terror organization in 1997 and delisted in 2021.
People who provide support or resources to foreign terror organizations and who aren’t U.S. citizens can’t legally enter the country and can face deportation.
In addition, financial institutions that control funds for these groups must retain possession of the funds and report them to U.S. authorities.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson could not immediately say how many former Iranian conscripts have had visa applications affected by the designation. The spokesperson said applications are reviewed on an individual basis and in some cases waivers can be applied.