NYU Ph.D Student Narges Bayani Detained At JFK

Narges Bayani, a Ph.D student at NYU’s Institute for the Study Of The Ancient World, was among those who were detained at JFK. According to a Facebook post by Bayani’s sister, she was denied re-entry to the country and has to wait two days to take a flight back to Iran despite living in United States for the past eight years.

As of publishing, we don’t know if she has been released.

Her detainment comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order, which instituted a 90 day travel ban for nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. This same executive order also halted the United States’ refugee program. Despite a judge in Brooklyn issuing a temporary halt on deportations of visa holders and refugees held in American airports, the fate of many detained around the country is still unclear.

UPDATE: NYU President Andrew Hamilton sent out an email regarding the executive order. In the email he reassured students that NYU will “safeguard the rights, well-being, education, and scholarship of those affected by these or other changes to immigration policy.”

Hamilton reiterated what he wrote in November, when NYU announced how it would be protecting undocumented students. The email reads:

• We will not permit federal officials on campus to gather information about immigrants in our community absent a subpoena or similar legal order;
• Our Public Safety Officers do not and will not ask about the immigration status of members of the NYU community, nor will they voluntarily share such information with law enforcement;
• We will vigorously uphold the privacy protections granted our students by federal law; and
• The University’s scholarship assistance to non-U.S.-citizens, which is independent of federal financial aid programs, will carry on regardless of changes to immigration policies.

Hamilton’s email did not make any mention of Bayani herself, but did mention that the university “wrote directly to students, faculty, and researchers from the seven nations cited in the order — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — and highlighted the enormous risk they would be taking should they choose to travel outside the United States while the order remains in effect.”

According to the email, “special information sessions” are going to be conducted for them this week with an immigration expert from NYU Law School and staff from the Office of Global Services.

Hamilton’s message comes on the heels of the impromptu protests at many airports across the country last night, including JFK.

UPDATE: NYU has responded to our inquiries. “One NYU student was detained at the airport in New York,” said university spokesperson John Beckman in an email to NYU Local. “We are very glad to report that she was permitted to enter the country Sunday morning, thanks to the intervention of our Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. NYU is also very grateful to Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who also intervened on the student’s behalf at request of the University.

This story is still developing and we will update this post with more information as it becomes available.