Our harrowing experience upon arrival to the USA for the purpose of attending the fourth reunion and conference of Sharif University of Technology Association

Hereby, I am writing to you requesting that this letter be read today, at the 4th reunion, during the time slot originally allocated to my presentation. The following is a brief description of what my friends, my wife, and I experienced on our way to join our ex-classmates and Professors at the 4th reunion held in Santa Clara, CA, Aug. 4-6 2006. It is more or less the same story for many other families on route to the same venue. Mr. Naghib, Mr. Khandaghi, Mr. Khorsand, their families, my wife, and I were on the same flight on route to attend the reunion. We arrived at the San Francisco airport at 12pm on Friday Aug. 4th. We were immediately separated from the rest of the arriving passengers and taken away by a special police task force awaiting us at the gate. We were escorted to the airport police station. The officers immediately proceeded to interrogating us individually. Farsi speaking translators were made available on speakerphones to aid the communication process. We were each fingerprinted several times, photographed and were subsequently subjected to several hours of interrogation. Mr. Khorsand, my wife, and I were detained in the airport from noon to midnight. Considering the fact that we had endured 16 hours of air travel prior to the detention, you can imagine the level of hardship.

The summary of what we were told by the officers is as follows: Your visas have been revoked and hence, you have entered the United States illegally. At that moment our main concern was for Mr. Naghib and Mr. Handaghi and their families which included small children. None of us had any news as to their whereabouts, since our joint arrival at the airport. Apparently, they were taken to a different location at the San Francisco airport.

At midnight, Mr. Khorsand, my wife, and I were transferred to yet another police station at the airport. At this point, the rest of our belongings, including my belt, my shoe laces, and my wife's ring and necklace were confiscated. Thereafter, they put us in special police cars and after driving for about an hour we arrived at a final destination which turned out to ironically be Santa Clara. However, to our great dismay, it was not our original intended destination of Hyatt Regency Hotel, the reunion venue, but as we later found out was the Santa Clara County jail.

Upon arrival at the jail, they separated my wife from us and she was taken to a women's prison. I have to admit that this was the lowest point of the entire ordeal for me. At this point, my wife was in tears and begged not to be separated from us. They took her away while subjecting the two of us to body searches. To my knowledge, one has to have had committed a major crime to be subjected to such treatment. Next, there was more fingerprinting, and we were photographed several times. We were subsequently moved to a hall along with several criminals, many of whom were clearly intoxicated. We witnessed police beatings endured by some of our above mentioned hall-mates. Half an hour later, Mr. Khorsand and I were placed in a 3x4 meter jail cell. After about an hour, 13 men were brought into our small jail cell. They were mostly Mexican immigrants brought in for what seemed to be drug and gang related issues. I have to add that our small cell had only one toilet albeit an open one!

It was quite a tough night since with the large number of people in the cell, there was not enough room to sit, let alone sleep. We were repeatedly asked by our cell-mates regarding the type of crimes we had committed to be in jail! At this point, my main concern was that I did not know the whereabouts of my wife. I found out later, upon being separated from us, she was placed in a cell along with several other women who seemed to have been arrested for prostitution. My wife's cell-mates subjected her to a level of harassment that caused her to collapse on two occasions requiring medical aid. At one point of the night, they had to bring in a psychiatrist to treat her. To my great disbelief, I found out later that all the women in my wife's cell, including her, were chained to their chairs for the entire night.

In the morning, they fed us with a piece of bread and bowl of soup, and then resumed the interrogation. Previously, I had expressed my concern for my wife's health the prison head manager, seemly a kind lady. At this point, she approached me with information regarding my wife's situation. Upon talking to the head manager, I was shouted at and reprimanded by a prison guard. I have to add that I have never been subjected to such harsh treatment in my entire life!

In about half an hour later, we were told we were done with jail and they were taking us to the airport to be deported from the USA. They brought in my wife, she seemed to be in ill-health and was and quite pale. Mr. Khorsand and I were handcuffed and they were proceeding to put the handcuffs on my wife. I begged them to refrain from subjecting my wife to any extra pressure on my sick wife who seemed to be at the verge of collapse. They brought in a special jail van, put Mr. Korsandi and myself in one compartment while my wife was put in a separate compartment. We were driven to the airport and upon arrival were further humiliated by the gazes of the other travelers assuming we are hardcore criminals based on the manner we were transported to the airport.

I have to add that on July 25th, when I went to the American Consulate in Dubai to obtain my entry visa to the United States, I gave them my email address, fax number, telephone number, just in case they needed to contact me. Thus, if at any point of time, our visas were revoked, I believe they could have easily notified us via email/fax/phone. At no point of time, any of us were notified of such change. They could have prevented this harrowing ordeal plus the significant financial loss incurred by a simple phone call or email. I definitely did not expect this level of mistreatment from a country championing human rights for the rest of the world.