June 17, 2022
An Iranian-Canadian diabetes researcher scheduled to start a two-year fellowship at Harvard Medical School was denied entry to the US based on her Iranian heritage, Harvard has charged in federal court.
Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program said May 10 it has filed a lawsuit against the federal government as well as a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office on behalf of the researcher, Maryam Shamloo.
The civil rights complaint alleges that Customs and Border Protection officers denied Shamloo and her husband entry to the US based on their Iranian birth and violated procedures by demanding DNA samples. They and their two children are Canadian citizens.
The lawsuit asks the federal government to issue Shamloo a visa as soon as possible so she can begin the fellowship.
“I worked very hard for the last five years in order to be able to get this prestigious dream fellowship,” Shamloo said in a statement. “My hope was to go to Harvard and develop my knowledge of therapies in response to unmet needs in the field of diabetes.”
According to the suit, Shamloo and her family attempted to cross into the US at the Pembina-Emerson port of entry on the North Dakota-Manitoba border April 2, 2021.
There they “faced unjust scrutiny” due to their country of origin. Border agents interrogated her husband about his mandatory military service while in Iran and his political opinions before denying them entry, the Harvard law clinic said.
When Shamloo next tried take a plane from Toronto to Boston without her family on April 18, 2021, she was again denied entry to the US and told by Customs and Border Protection officers that she is “Iranian and there is a travel ban,” even though she is Canadian and the travel ban on Iranians had been revoked.
As instructed, she applied for a J-1 visa, even though as a Canadian citizen she is not required to have one to enter the US, the suit said. That application remains pending.
