OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Legal experts are raising red flags after federal immigration agents detained an OU professor for multiple days despite his having a valid work visa, and with federal officials declining to explain why he was taken into custody and questioned. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not told News 4 why its agents detained Professor Vahid Abedini at OKC Will Rogers international Airport on Saturday, only stating he was “detained for standard questioning.”Abedini, who teaches Iranian studies at OU’s College of International Studies, was preparing to board a plane to Washington, D.C., to attend a work conference.
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Agents took him into custody at the airport, transferred him to the Logan County Jail, and later moved him to an ICE detention facility, where he remained for two days before being released Monday night.
“That’s not typical for routine questioning in any setting,” legal expert Tim Gilpin said.Gilpin said nothing about Abedini’s detention appears routine.“Usually for routine questioning, they would contact the individual by telephone or letter and say, we need to make an appointment for you to come in to answer some questions,” Gilpin said. “An appointment would be made and they would show up at the immigration office and they’d take care of the information. But to be surprised, detained at the airport if you’re about to leave to a professional conference is unusual… It just sounds like something that none of us are really used to in this country.”Abedini, originally from Iran, has lived in the United States for years, earning a graduate degree at a Florida university, teaching at the University of Arkansas, and joining OU earlier this year.He is in the U.S. on a valid H-1B visa.
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“That type visa is for someone with specialized knowledge or ability that a business, a corporation, in this case a university, hires them,” Gilpin said. “That kind of visa does have more restrictions on, say, a citizen, but they also have some of the same rights,” Gilpin said. “To have them picked up randomly at an airport and be, I guess, disappeared for three or so days doesn’t feel or sound good.”According to the New York Times, this is not the first time international scholars with H-1B visas have been detained since the Trump administration began cracking down on immigration this year.The Times reported a Georgetown University researcher from India and a Tufts University graduate from Turkey were detained in the spring, but later released following legal challenges.
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“I think the message being sent is fear,” Gilpin said. “They want to instill a sense of fear in people who are here on a lawful immigration status that they need to be careful what they say, careful who they associate with, and that they’re being watched and can be picked up at any time, even a random place like an airport.”News 4 reached out to Abedini’s attorney for comment but has not yet heard back.Abedini posted a statement on his personal LinkedIn page after his release, saying in part:“It was a deeply distressing experience, especially seeing those without the support I had. My 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.”…