Just some months again, Safa Sefidgari, an Iran native and Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers College, was pregnant along with her first youngster and diving deep into her lab work in New Jersey. She had made a couple of buddies, and her English improved day-after-day. It ought to have been a joyful time.
At first of March, as a substitute of celebrating her being pregnant and educational success along with her husband, Sefidgari went into labor at 30 weeks, about 4 weeks sooner than docs stated was secure.
Her Iranian husband, Ehsan Entezari, had no method to get to her — he was caught in Canada and not using a visa whereas Sefidgari endured a whirlwind of physician’s visits and hospitalization alone.
Per week after delivery, the newborn died. Her husband couldn’t journey to the U.S. to be by his spouse’s facet.
Standing of their means is the Trump administration’s journey ban. Issued in June, the coverage restricts entry of residents from sure international locations, together with Iran, to “shield the US from international terrorists and different nationwide safety and public security threats.”
Sefidgari and Entezari, each 33, final noticed one another in January. Sefidgari was in a position to go away the U.S. and return to New Jersey along with her F-1 visa, which permits worldwide college students to enter the U.S. to pursue educational work. However her husband, who’s ending a postdoctoral program in Canada, has been repeatedly denied an F-2 visa, which applies to dependents and spouses of F-1 visa holders. Neither has utilized for asylum within the U.S.
With out specifying a cause for the denial, a discover Entezari acquired, reviewed by NBC Information, stated partly: “When figuring out eligibility for a visa, the officer takes into consideration the applicant’s complete state of affairs, together with household, neighborhood, skilled, and financial ties to the applicant’s house nation in addition to prior journey historical past and any ties to the US.”
Sefidgari and Entezari are amongst an untold variety of Iranians ensnared in an ever-widening immigration dragnet stuffed with lawsuits, detentions and separations because the U.S. and Israel wage battle on Iran. With no secure house to return to, many such households are caught in authorized limbo whereas immigration attorneys battle the Trump administration in court docket.
Left to grieve removed from her husband, Sefidgari stated she will’t assist however wonder if her child may need survived had he been along with her. Maybe, she stated, she would have been much less pressured about their ongoing separation and fewer anxious that the journey ban may preserve them aside for a number of extra years.
“They don’t care about individuals’s lives,” Sefidgari stated, referring to the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration insurance policies. “It’s simply so unhappy and disappointing.”
Final 12 months, the couple joined a bunch lawsuit difficult the administration’s journey ban. The lawsuit, which was filed in December in U.S. District Courtroom for Massachusetts, contains dozens of Iranian plaintiffs and argues that the ban shouldn’t have an effect on reviewing and issuing pupil visas.
Jesse Bless, one of many attorneys representing the plaintiffs, stated that whereas the president has broad discretion to determine who enters the nation, the State Division additionally has discretion to assessment visa purposes.
“Even previous to the journey ban, some Iranians waited years to be accredited,” he stated, referring to F-1 and F-2 visas. “Our worry is that even when the journey ban is lifted, it would take two or three extra years for pupil visas to be reviewed and processed.”
Legal professionals for the Trump administration moved to dismiss the case this week.
The State Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Sefidgari moved to the U.S. in 2024 after having secured a pupil visa. She acquired a grasp’s diploma in diet in Tehran and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in endocrinology and animal biosciences at Rutgers College.
She is finding out the connection between metabolism and the parasympathetic nervous system, she stated.
Entezari has a grasp’s diploma in metals engineering and is ending a postdoctoral program on the College of Saskatchewan, 2,000 miles and two time zones away from New Jersey.
The couple met about 10 years in the past whereas they have been attending college in Tehran. They at all times deliberate to pursue superior levels exterior Iran after which calm down in whichever nation supplied the very best work and analysis alternatives.
Sefidgari was nonetheless in Tehran once they determined to get married in 2023. Entezari had moved to Mexico after which to Canada to complete his research. He returned to Iran for his or her marriage ceremony in July 2023 and, in August, utilized for his F-2 spousal visa.
Sefidgari filed her visa software as doctoral acceptance letters poured in. Her F-1 visa course of was so delayed that a few of the seven universities that originally accepted her threatened to reissue their presents to another person who may settle for instantly. Ultimately Sefidgari was granted a pupil visa and commenced her Ph.D. program at Rutgers College in fall 2024.
In the meantime, Entezari’s F-2 software appeared to enter its last assessment phases.
“We have been so pleased. We thought he would have his visa and we might be collectively once more,” she stated.
As a substitute, Donald Trump received elected president. “The embassy went quiet,” Sefidgari stated.
In September 2024, Entezari acquired a rejection discover from the Division of Homeland Safety, in line with emailed paperwork reviewed by NBC Information. The e-mail highlights that candidates should display “they’ve the intent, means, and skill to finish a course of examine in the US.” It says that whereas the choice can’t be appealed, candidates can reapply.
“We couldn’t perceive what occurred,” Sefidgari stated, including that her husband was looking for not an F-1 visa however as a substitute an F-2 visa for spouses of worldwide college students.
Entezari utilized once more, this time from Canada, the place he had began a postdoctoral program whereas Sefidgari completed her first 12 months at Rutgers. By that time, Trump’s second time period was properly underway, and the journey ban went into impact.
Two months later, in August, Entezari received one other rejection, in line with paperwork shared with NBC Information. The discover cited Trump’s journey ban as a cause, in line with paperwork reviewed by NBC Information.
Sefidgari was already pregnant and felt “fully hopeless” after a second denial.
Entezari stated they tried all the things they may consider, together with interesting to the workplace of Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
“This extended separation from my spouse has contributed to ongoing struggles with stress, nervousness and melancholy,” he wrote in an electronic mail to Booker’s workplace shared with NBC Information. “My partner and I are doing our greatest to stay affected person, however the uncertainty is changing into more and more troublesome to endure.”
He stated final week: “No one has been in a position to assist us. I can’t go to USA to see my spouse, and she will’t come to Canada in her situation.”
Booker described the journey ban in an announcement as “reckless and discriminatory.” He added, “Indiscriminately closing our doorways to individuals fleeing violence and instability, stopping U.S. residents from reuniting with their households, or singling out individuals merely due to the nation through which they have been born is antithetical to our nation’s most basic values.”
Booker’s workplace has just lately made contact with Entezari.
Alone, Sefidgari is juggling her Ph.D. program whereas mourning the lack of her child and the pressured separation from the one individual greatest in a position to assist her.
“In any case that’s occurred, I’ve unhealthy recollections of New Jersey. But it surely’s additionally the place my child shall be buried,” she stated by way of heavy emotion.
Her visa is up for renewal in June, she stated, and her program isn’t scheduled to finish till 2029. Deciding whether or not to remain in New Jersey or switch is just too overwhelming proper now — she is simply making an attempt to get by way of her child’s funeral within the coming days.
Entezari gained’t be capable to attend, the couple stated. That realization causes him to fluctuate between disappointment and fury.
“She confronted a medically fragile being pregnant fully alone, with out her husband or shut household assist,” he stated. “She has needed to endure supply, grief and extreme psychological trauma. Why?”
The couple can solely wait and see whether or not the united statescourt system will enable them to be collectively. Within the meantime, Sefidgari stated, she has a small group of buddies in her program who’ve acted as surrogates throughout this painful time. They visited her on the hospital and slept over at her house when she was too fragile to be alone, they usually often coax her out to dinner or lunch when she feels up for it.
However nights weigh closely on her, she stated. She’s anxious a lot of the time and might’t sleep properly.
Sefidgari visited the Pakistani Embassy in Washington this week to resume her Iranian passport. Requested whether or not she’s frightened she is likely to be rejected or face an unexpected hiccup, she pauses and sighs.
“Every little thing has been arduous since I got here right here,” she stated. “I don’t know what to anticipate.”
