Kansas universities, refugee groups grapple with order’s impact

It wasn’t easy for Sara Bahrami, a 31-year-old from Iran, to get her visa to come to the United States.

She said she had to go to neighboring Turkmenistan because there’s no U.S. embassy in Tehran.

“This is a country that welcomed me to get an education,” said Bahrami, a fifth-year doctoral student at Wichita State University.

But that has changed for Bahrami following President Trump’s executive order on refugees and immigrants late last week.

“I no longer feel welcome,” she said Monday.

Trump signed an executive order on immigration Friday afternoon that prompted legal challenges and airport protests over the weekend.

The order suspends all refugee admissions for 120 days and blocks Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. indefinitely. It also temporarily limits travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Episcopal Migration Ministries-Wichita was planning to resettle about 170 refugees in the Wichita area during the federal fiscal year that began in October. About 60 refugees have been settled so far, said Marla Schmidt, the field office director.

Schmidt said she has had difficult conversations over the past couple of days with refugees already here who were expecting family members to go through the process soon.

“They’re highly concerned, and they have many questions what (the order) means for them and family they were hoping to join them,” she said.

“ ‘Can my sister come?’ That’s the hard part,” Schmidt said.

The International Rescue Committee of Wichita and Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas have also worked to resettle refugees in Kansas. It’s unclear how many resettlements by those two organizations will be affected by the executive order.

About 1,053 refugees settled in Kansas during 2016, including 581 in Wichita, according to data maintained by the State Department.

‘I feel unwanted’

The executive order also blocked citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S. for 90 days. Those countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The Trump administration said the move is about keeping the United States safe and that those countries were previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.

WSU says 41 of its international students are from those countries. Most of them, like Bahrami, are from Iran.

“WSU provided me a safe and secure environment and now suddenly everyone is stressed out because we don’t know what will happen,” she said. “I feel unwanted, frustrated right now.”

The university may have other students who were born in those countries but have become permanent U.S. residents or naturalized citizens.

WSU advised students from those countries on Monday afternoon to not travel outside the United States “until immigration policy is clear.”

“International students are welcome at Wichita State and we’re communicating our concerns to federal policymakers,” WSU president John Bardo said in a statement. “We will do everything we can to enable our students to continue their education and our faculty and staff to continue their important work.”

Vince Altum, WSU’s executive director of international education, told The Eagle the immediate impact on international students was lessened, in part, because the semester is already underway. He said he hoped the order would be further clarified before the end of the spring semester.

“Because all of this is still in flux, we’re not recommending that they travel internationally, that they remain in the U.S.,” he said.

International students from other Muslim-majority countries should avoid leaving the country as well because the scope of the order could be expanded, Altum said.

Bahrami is worried about not being able to come back to the U.S. if she goes home to Iran to visit. And she said her family’s plans to visit Wichita for her graduation in May could be in jeopardy.

“When I was a teenager, I had everything planned,” she said.

“I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know what will be my next move. Maybe go back to Iran. Maybe someplace else.”

Other universities

The University of Kansas is advising passport holders, citizens, nationals and dual nationals from the affected countries “to avoid international travel until there is some clarification of the situation.”

“I want to assure you we are coordinating with our international programs staff, immigration experts and peer universities to fully understand the implications of the new federal policies,” chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said Sunday in a statement.

Kansas State University said an initial count showed 63 students were from the seven countries.

“K-State deeply values the contributions of our international family members and regrets the disruption this situation is causing in their lives,” president Richard Myers said Sunday in a statement. “As a public research university with global connections, we are concerned about the detrimental effects of this policy on those pursuing academic studies and research.”

Pittsburg State and Emporia State also issued statements Monday about the executive order.

This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 1:22 PM with the headline "Kansas universities, refugee groups grapple with order’s impact."