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I wrote and deleted this message so many times, because I did not know how to put this pain into words. But I am writing now with hope that you might read it, and that you might hear the voice of students like me.
I know you have spoken about Iran, cared about what is happening to our people, and tried to stand by Iranians in difficult times. Today, I am asking you from the bottom of my heart: please do not forget Iranian students in America.
So many of us came here carrying years of sacrifice, fear, and hope. We left our homes, our families, and everything familiar behind, and endured countless hardships just for a chance to build a future. Many of us spent months, even more than a year, trapped in administrative processing, living in uncertainty, spending all we had, working endlessly, traveling to embassies, and holding on to nothing but hope. We went through all of that just to take one small step toward our dreams.
I was one of those students. I spent more than a year in clearance, in a dark place full of stress, helplessness, and fear that my future might disappear before it even began. When it was finally over and I arrived in the United States, it felt like I had survived something impossible. It felt like I had finally reached the land of opportunity, the place where hard work and dreams could still mean something.
But now, once again, we are living with fear and uncertainty.
We are not our government. We are not politics. We are not terrorism. We are students. We are researchers. We are young people who came here with honest dreams, with love for learning, and with the hope of building a life through hard work and dignity.
And yet now, many of us feel invisible and abandoned. We cannot find jobs. We cannot get OPT. Our immigration and status-related processes are being put on hold. We live every day with anxiety, wondering whether everything we fought for, everything we sacrificed for, will be taken away from us.
This is what hurts the most: after surviving so much to get here, we are once again being pushed into hopelessness.
I am asking you sincerely, as a successful Iranian woman whose voice carries weight and whose support has meant so much to so many people: please stand with us again. Please speak about us. Please do not let our pain go unseen. Please help people understand that we should not be punished for a government we did not choose and for politics we have no control over.
We are human beings. We are dreamers. We are students who only wanted a chance.
Please do not leave us alone.
Thank you for reading this.
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