ICE Detains Oklahoma Professor With H-1B Visa

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a University of Oklahoma professor Saturday while he was on his way to a conference.

Vahid Abedini, a professor of Iranian Studies, was stopped and detained while he was boarding his flight to attend the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. He was released Monday night, according to a LinkedIn post.

“I’m relieved to share that I was released from custody tonight. It was a deeply distressing experience, especially seeing those without the support I had,” Abedini wrote on LinkedIn early Tuesday morning. “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.”

Abedini did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment. According to Joshua Landis, Abedini’s colleague and co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Abedini has an H-1B visa.

“ICE arrested our beloved professor Vahid Abedini,” Landis wrote on X Monday. “He has been wrongfully detained because he has a valid H-1B visa—a non-immigrant work visa granted to individuals in ‘specialty occupations,’ including higher education faculty. We are praying for his swift release.”

Reached for comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed: “This Iranian national was detained for standard questioning. He’s been released.”

Abedini’s detention makes real the fears of many foreign and American academics who are rethinking or boycotting travel to academic conferences in the U.S. due to concerns about wrongful arrests by immigration enforcement.

In a statement, the MESA Board of Directors said they were “disturbed” to learn of Abedini’s detention and “deeply concerned” about the circumstances. The University of Oklahoma declined to comment on the situation.