The following is from a statement by a woman on the faculty of, and a student at, the City University of New York (CUNY). According to the faculty union at CUNY, she was denied entry into the U.S. as a result of Trump’s executive order. She was traveling back to the U.S. from Iran, where she is a citizen, with legal douments to resume her work and studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. She was in transit through Abu Dhabi when she was forbidden to board a plane to New York City. She was detained almost 18 hours before being forced to return to Iran She remains barred from entry into the U.S.

In her statement, she said:

The sufferings of all of us [who have been detained] are just one side of this horrendous order. The other side is the struggle against racism and fascism, against assaults on freedom and human dignity… As a student of sociology and political science, I have devoted a major part of my scholarly life to the study of authoritarianism. It is time to call things by their true names; this is Islamophobia, racism, fascism. We, the 99% of the world, need to stand united in resisting the authoritarian forces all over the world.”