Iranians in America

Photo: Banafsheh Akhlaghi
Western Regional Coordinator of Amnesty International, San Francisco, California

February 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution (1978-79) which toppled the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and installed an Islamic Republic under the dictatorship of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Shah was not only ousted, but the 500-year old Iranian monarchy was also abolished.

The revolution led to a massive social upheaval which resulted in the mass migration of Iranians to Europe and the US. The situation was made worse by the bloody conflict with neighboring Iraq which lasted eight years -1980 to 1988.

Today there are close to 700-thousand Iranian Americans in the US. Within a decade following the Islamic revolution, the number of foreign born Iranian nationals in the United States increased by 74 percent.

To mark the anniversary of this migration and to discuss the challenges faced by Iranian-Americans in the aftermath of September 11, anthropologist Danielle Muller interviewed Banafsheh Akhlaghi, Western Regional Coordinator of Amnesty International in San Francisco. Human and civil rights activist and former Law Professor, she is founder and former President of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement (NLSCA). Its aim is to ensure the human rights and dignity of people from Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian background in the United States.

Danielle Muller: Could you highlight the reasons why many left Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979?

Banafsheh Akhlaghi: As the revolution intensified in the late 1970s, many Iranians outside of the country including students were calling for an end to the Shahīs regime because of its violation of human rights. They hoped that the clerics would bring democratic changes into the country. As a result, many decided to return to Iran and lend their support to the leaders of the revolution. There are testimonies of how the Khomeini regime actually allowed public discourse at the time. So for the first time since the overthrow of the monarchy, students were staging rallies outside of university corners; others gathered in workplaces. People actually had political discourse. And this was viewed by the people in Iran as a sign of democracy.

Testimonies also show that the truth of the matter was that the Islamic Republic had secret agents out at all those locations, listening and viewing who were those speakers. Who were going to those gatherings? Where were those gatherings being held? So they were collecting data and information. Soon after the first two-three years, the authorities began to round up all those individuals meeting around universities and workplaces. The regime was basically waiting to see who would come up as leaders of the civil society. Once the new rulers knew who these civic leaders were, they took action - taking the cream of society away. These activities were followed with mass executions, detentions, interrogations and tortures. Once the Iranian people started to truly see what īthisī Revolution meant to them, then, yes, people started to leave.

Q: This must have meant a mass exodus. But how did opposition leaders and ordinary folks manage to spare their lives and make the journey toward freedom?

A: Members of the political opposition to the regime were finding their way out of the country. At the same time, the Iran-Iraq war had begun. Massive numbers of parents were trying to get their children out of the country because they didnīt want their children to be recruited for the war. Boys were brought out of the country, well, smuggled out mostly - however they could find their way out.

This is where the tragedy of the refugees started to be seen as they became displaced internally. People tried to move themselves out of the country. The reality was that smugglers brought them from point A to point B. Lingering questions still remain. How many people were losing their lives during this process? How many women and children were raped during this process? How many people were physically harmed? How many people gave money to smugglers and the services werenīt offered? They were moved like sheep and cattle on their hands and knees to get to īsafetyī. Some were being brought to Russia or Turkey for example, but they never got to safety.

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Q: What happened to those refugees who got out and how did many of them end up in the US?

A: The Iranian story is not different from the experiences of any other refugees around the world. Now as I am saying this, I am getting a bit emotional as well because of the thought of the story of my own family. I had many family members that had to move the same way. Ultimately Iranian refugees got to wherever they could. Many of them ended up going to India or South-East Asia due to their geographical proximity. Iranians also moved to countries that would simply accept them, like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Canada and of course, the īgolden countryī of the United States of America. Itīs precisely this last one where most people wanted to come to, and of course many did. They came into the United States either dripping, or as a full wave depending on which historical period the movement occurred.

Q: Letīs fast-forward a little bit and get your perspective of how September 11 has affected Iranian nationals in the US. By September 11, 2001, many Iranian refugees and other immigrants had been comfortably resettled in the US in big numbers. After 9/11, US-Iranian relations were in their lowest ebb. Former President George W. Bush described the Iranian regime as an evil state. How have Iranian Americans managed the tensions created by the tragic events of 9/11?

A: NLSCA, the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement, was created as a direct result of matters related September 11 and the impact that came out from the Bush Administration. Right after September 11, 5,000 boys and men who appeared to be or were from Middle Eastern countries were detained and interrogated by the FBI.

By late 2002, a law that was created after World War II when members of the Japanese-American community were interrogated was brought back to life. US Attorney General John Ashcroft brought it into the system under the name of National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. But people just called it Special Registration. And the plan was to look at boys and men, sixteen years and older, from particular nation states. Those nations were all primarily Middle Eastern, North African, or South Asian, except for North Korea. US authorities looked at whether these nationals in question held legal residence status, green card, citizenship or whether they had filed for a final registration before a particular date in the United States. All of them were ordered to come to various immigration offices to be fingerprinted, photographed and to be questioned. NLSCA has focused on representing nationals from the 24 countries which US Attorney General Ashcroft put on a list to register. Since then around 3,000 individuals have been counseled, advised or directly represented by the NLSCA.

Q: How did Iranian-Americans cope with these US measures and what was NLSCAīs role in attenuating the situation?

A: Iranians were on the first list of those nationals that had to be registered. The reason was because the US was going to look first at the countries of the īAxis of Evilī. Iran was on that axis according to former President George W. Bush. Right from the first hour after 9/11, the focus had been on Iranians. The Special Registration numbers among the Iranian nationals were so high that the Iranian community in Los Angeles began to stage demonstration after demonstration. They really made a large public outing of what was happening and what was taking place. So much so, that when the next round took place involving other nationalities, people hesitant to register because they were afraid they would be detained as well.

Iranians were among the first to be registered, detained and to be placed in removal or deportation proceedings. Many were indeed deported. Many were granted refugee status in Canada claiming persecution in the US because of national origin, gender, and religion. NLSCA filed applications on behalf for many of those refugees. Some families were literally walking across the Windsor Bridge into Canada after being here in the US for years, even decades. The shocking part of this is that the Canadian government granted those refugee applications confirming that persecution was taking place in the US. That is a historic point that has not been highlighted or spoken about much.

Iranians were being given less and less opportunities to enter the United States on work visas or other visas such as tourist visas. So, family connections or reunions became impossible. At the same time a huge number of individuals were being interviewed by the FBI. Many had their citizenship or green card applications delayed by up to four to six years because of background checks. Others who had been working as contractors for US Federal agencies like the Department of Energy or Department of Defense were having their security clearances denied under the provisions of loyalty to the United States. This meant Iranians losing their contracts and their jobs. We believe racial profiling and employment discrimination are still taking place. There have been many accounts by Iranians of mistreatment by the police and of widespread discrimination and intimidation of school children because of their national origin.

Q: Who is to blame?

A: There isnīt anyone to blame, frankly. People were reacting to a traffic event. But the Bush Administration and the media were not reacting in a responsible manner. This led to the subatomic viewing of a group of people. This is not new in the history of the United States or in the history of human beings. You find a scapegoat and you say thatīs the cause. As a human being you feel hopeless and helpless, and you donīt know how to counter what had just happened. As human beings, we tend to fondle all our anger towards whoever is is closest to us. I canīt even tell you how much accounts we have had of even African Americans and Latinos, who said they have been harassed because people thought they were Middle Eastern. Itīs just ignorance coupled with anger and irresponsibility.

Q: Do you think under President Barak Obama there is better hope for diplomacy and dialogue between the US and Iran.

A: Iranians are divided on this. I keep relating the matter to that of the Cubans in the US. There are those who voted for Senator John McCain because they wanted to see Iran be attacked so that democracy can rise. They really wanted McCain to have won the elections. And there are those who voted for Obama in view of possibilities for dialogue. President Obama has also always been quite forceful in his comments on the Islamic Republic. But is there hope? I would hope so and that was one of the factors that I took into account when I supported Obamaīs presidency, and many like me did so.

Iran has a large population with a large geographic land mass. It is not an Iraq or an Afghanistan. So the impact of a strike against Iran would be more than the world can bear. What would attacking Iran be like? I donīt think we would be wise to take that route. We only have to look at what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan and the number of people killed or displaced. As an Iranian-American, I would say: diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. I donīt think the option of war is what we need now. There ought to be a global conversation first. Itīs important to rally the global support to bring the Iranian government together with the United States and Israeli governments and other decision makers to the decision table. It is urgent to have these hard conversations. I would hope that with this new administration there will be that opportunity.