Airline no-fly lists blocked Iranian Americans even before the 2017 travel ban

Evidence

Evidence exists beyond the testimonies of the young men in my study, and well before the highly controversial 2017 “Muslim ban” on travel into the United States, to confirm the intense travel-related scrutiny under which Iranian American men are placed. In 2012, a young second-generation man named Kevin Iraniha (born to two US citizens: an Iranian-born father and white, European American mother) was barred from boarding a return flight to his hometown of San Diego, California. He had just graduated from the United Nations–affiliated University for Peace in Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica. Following extensive questioning at the local US embassy in San Juan about his previous trips to Iran, his Muslim faith and practice, and political affiliations, Iraniha was denied entrance via airplane and, instead, was forced to cross into the United States by foot after two flights through Mexico City and Tijuana. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 384

Categorization

• XREF: Extends my draft chapter’s argument that US Muslim travel restrictions existed well before Trump — pairs with background reading on post-9/11 racial profiling of Arabs and Iranians.