\n<\/p>\n
Abedini\u2019s detention makes real the fears of many foreign and American academics who are rethinking or boycotting travel to academic conferences in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Peter Zay\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a University of Oklahoma professor Saturday while he was on his way to a conference.<\/p>\n
Vahid Abedini, a professor of Iranian Studies, was stopped and detained while he was boarding his flight to attend the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. He was released Monday night, according to a LinkedIn post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m relieved to share that I was released from custody tonight. It was a deeply distressing experience, especially seeing those without the support I had,\u201d Abedini wrote on LinkedIn early Tuesday morning. \u201cMy sincere thanks to my friends and colleagues at the University of Oklahoma, the Middle East Studies Association, and the wider Iran studies and political science community for helping resolve this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abedini did not respond to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>\u2019s request for comment. According to Joshua Landis, Abedini\u2019s colleague and co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Abedini has an H-1B visa.<\/p>\n \u201cICE arrested our beloved professor Vahid Abedini,\u201d Landis wrote on X Monday. \u201cHe has been wrongfully detained because he has a valid H-1B visa\u2014a non-immigrant work visa granted to individuals in \u2018specialty occupations,\u2019 including higher education faculty. We are praying for his swift release.\u201d<\/p>\n Reached for comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>: \u201cThis Iranian national was detained for standard questioning. He’s been released.\u201d<\/p>\n Abedini\u2019s detention makes real the fears of many foreign and American academics who are rethinking or boycotting travel to academic conferences in the U.S. due to concerns about wrongful arrests by immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n In a statement, the MESA Board of Directors said they were \u201cdisturbed\u201d to learn of Abedini\u2019s detention and \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d about the circumstances. The University of Oklahoma declined to comment on the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abedini\u2019s detention makes real the fears of many foreign and American academics who are rethinking or boycotting travel to academic conferences in the U.S. Peter Zay\/AFP\/Getty Images Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a University of Oklahoma professor Saturday while he was on his way to a conference. Vahid Abedini, a professor of Iranian Studies,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[14717,9232,2466,192,6698,202],"class_list":{"0":"post-35470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-detains","9":"tag-h1b","10":"tag-ice","11":"tag-oklahoma","12":"tag-professor","13":"tag-visa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}