(AP) Two years ago, Leili Ghazi quit studying biomedical engineering in Iran and seized the chance to travel to the United States to build a new life for herself and her parents.
Now, the 22-year-old is separated indefinitely from her family because her father performed required military service more than two decades ago as a conscript for a branch of the Iranian armed forces that the U.S. government years later declared a foreign terrorist organization. The designation bars anyone associated with the group from traveling to the United States, including her dad.
“He had to do office work and work on plans of buildings,” said Ghazi, who has been anxious and depressed since moving to Southern California. She expected her parents to eventually join her but later learned her father would be forced to stay behind. “He hasn’t done any activity of going to war or anything. It was not anything like that.”
