Moshen Hosseini had arrived. pic.twitter.com/xegxBa8Qe6
— Emily Cutts (@ecutts_HG) February 4, 2017
A University of Massachusetts Amherst student stuck in Tehran since President Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order has arrived Saturday afternoon.
“I’m very happy, actually very tired,” Mohsen Hosseini said shortly after making his way through customs.
Hosseini had not yet returned to the U.S. when the travel ban took effect. He returned to Iran over the university’s winter break to get married, according to the Ken Reade, director of international student and scholars services at UMass.
He said last Saturday he had planned on returning, but when he got to the airport they would not issue his boarding pass.
Hosseini said he briefly lost hope of his returning, but then things suddenly changed. Going through customs Saturday afternoon, Hosseini said it wasn’t any different from the last time he entered the country
Hosseini is one of three people from the university directly impacted by Trump’s travel ban. An Iranian undergraduate student and a visiting scholar from Syria are also being prevented from returning to the U.S.
Officials from the UMass administration offered to pay Hosseini’s rent while he remained stuck in Iran.
UMass personnel, including Reade, were on hand for the touchdown. Students from the Iranian Student Association and legal representation also attended.
Standing near Hosseini, Reade was visibly emotional, fighting back tears.
“Every email, every lost hour of sleep is totally worth it,” Reade said.
Just before noon, the area around the U.S. Customs and Border Protection exit into terminal E at Boston’s Logan International Airport was nearly empty.
A table with signs in multiple languages advertises legal help for those entering the country. Attorney Rei Matsushita made the two-hour drive from Northampton Saturday morning to join the pool of volunteer attorneys.
“I just wanted to help,” Matsushita said. “I don’t practice immigration law, but I’m a foreigner too.”
Matsushita, originally from Japan, has been in the U.S. for 20 years and said she is a green card holder. In the time she had been at the airport, she said she’s been talking to families waiting for loved ones to arrive.
“They are so anxious,” she said.
In addition to collecting information for potential cases, Matsushita said she was also there to be welcoming.
As international flights began to arrive, the crowd of people waiting outside the doors grew. Some came with signs already prepared while others quickly composed a message using concrete pillars as vertical tables. Volunteers from SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice, were on hand to welcome those returning to the states.
For more than two hours, Katty Alhayek waited for her brother-in-law Nael Zaino to walk through the doors outside of customs.
Zaino, 32, a Syrian refugee, had tried to get on a plane from Turkey multiple times since the executive order.
“This is what I don’t know … how I feel now,” Zaino said. “Surprised. I still can’t believe it.”
His wife and 18-month-old son were already in the U.S. and he last saw them in October. He’d been waiting for two years to come to the states.
With help from congressional offices in both Massachusetts and California, where his wife lives, Zaino was able to board a flight in Turkey, surprising even the airline personnel, he said.
Zaino will also be reunited with his brother, Basileus Zeno, who he has not seen in five years. Zeno is a Syrian with pending asylum status pursuing a doctorate in political science at UMass Amherst, the Gazette reported last week.
The first thing Zaino will do in his new life, he said, would be to hug his son.