The Trump administration’s ongoing freeze on visa applications for nationals of 39 countries has extended into a fifth month, with no sign of relief. For Iranian scientists already in the US, this stranglehold on immigration is not only sending a strong signal to scientific talent that they are not welcome, but it’s also compounded by the strain of an ongoing war affecting their families and colleagues abroad.
As an Iranian scientist myself, I have experienced this isolation firsthand and understand the family disruption, emotional distress, and career uncertainty faced by many of my colleagues.1 When I came to the US in 2006 for graduate school at Princeton University, months of administrative processing yielded a single-entry visa valid for only three months. I could legally remain in the country, but if I left, I would have to restart the visa process from abroad with no clear timeline for return. That uncertainty made visiting home practically impossible. Over the years, I missed birthdays, weddings, and deaths in the family; my parents' ability to visit was constrained by the same system. What looked on paper like a technicality functioned in practice as forced separation. The current restrictions recreate that condition at a much larger scale, placing students and scientists into legal and professional suspension.
In mid-April 2026, I began collecting first-hand accounts from Iranian students, scientists, clinicians, and their families affected by the current wave of US visa and immigration restrictions. Within 72 hours, 44 individuals responded. The sample is small in absolute terms, but the pattern is consistent.
The respondents are overwhelmingly researchers, scientists, and graduate students, mostly working in academic or biomedical science. Over three-quarters are already inside the US, working, training, and contributing. The remaining quarter of people are stranded abroad, unable to take up positions they have already been offered.
The dominant theme is paralysis, with six in 10 respondents reporting their US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) case appears frozen or delayed, and many others are facing paused green card processing and delayed work. The majority of cases trace back to the December 2 USCIS action. Months later, most are no closer to resolution.
The Human Cost
The practical impacts reflect personal, professional, and family life. Three-quarters of respondents report mental or emotional strain. Two-thirds face the risk of losing a job or offer their employer has already invested in filling. Roughly half have missed an academic term or training milestone. A fifth report family separation, unable to reunite with spouses and children. The stories behind the numbers are devastating.
A computational biologist with a PhD from a top-five computer science program was selected for a prestigious named fellowship at a leading school of computer science. Both his Optional Practical Training (OPT) and EB-2 NIW (a green card category reserved for those whose work serves the US national interest) applications, filed with premium processing, remain unadjudicated. He has had no income since December 2025 and is considering leaving the country, which would separate him from his fiancée, who remains a PhD student in the US.
A biotechnology researcher working on artificial intelligence (AI)-based cancer therapeutic design in San Francisco was terminated from her position after USCIS failed to adjudicate a timely OPT application filed months earlier. Her employer estimates the disruption caused close to $500,000 in losses. She is now depleting personal savings and faces homelessness within months.
A cancer epidemiologist in her fourth year of postdoctoral training at Georgetown University may be forced to leave the country because her J-1 visa is approaching its five-year limit, and adjustment of status is frozen.
A biomedical engineering PhD student at Johns Hopkins University reports that he will lose income, legal status, and health insurance, and that his employer, a hospital, will be directly harmed.
The responses reveal three structural patterns. First, there is no safe pathway. Every visa route is affected, and respondents who attempted to switch categories found all alternatives equally frozen.
Second, the harm is borne by the most productive: individuals with approved petitions, active research programs, competitive fellowships, and clinical training positions. Many hold classifications that the US government designates as having extraordinary ability or in the national interest.
Third, the damage compounds over time. A delayed OPT application becomes a lost job. A lost job becomes lost income. Lost income becomes housing instability. A frozen green card becomes an expiring visa, which then becomes forced departure. Each month of inaction narrows the available options and deepens the harm.
An Institutional Toll
This story isn’t just about individuals. The institutions named in my survey are top universities and research institutions, the backbone of American research. Every researcher who cannot start a postdoctoral position, every clinician who cannot begin residency, every scientist whose work authorization lapses is a direct loss to the US institutions that recruited, trained, and invested in them.
If the US doesn’t welcome these scientists, they will be forced to go elsewhere. Canada has launched a $1.2 billion package to recruit foreign scientists; China has rolled out a visa specifically for international STEM graduates. The talent doesn't disappear when a US visa is denied; it relocates. The respondents are working on cancer detection, drug discovery, gene therapy, AI infrastructure, and public health, precisely the fields the US claims as strategic priorities. Current policy treats them as threats.
What Comes Next
It’s time to speak up for these scientists. USCIS should resume case processing for nationals of countries currently paused, and at a minimum, should adjudicate applications from individuals with approved EB-1 and EB-2 NIW petitions, categories the US government itself defines as extraordinary ability and national interest. University leaders, scientific society heads, and research institutions should document specific cases of harm, raise them with their congressional delegations, and make plain what their labs and clinical programs stand to lose. Researchers who are not Iranian, not affected, and not yet at risk should not assume this is someone else's problem.
The respondents to this survey want their cases adjudicated. They want the country to honor commitments it's already made to them. They want to be heard.
- Taridashti S, et al. Health impacts of restrictive migration policies: A qualitative study of highly educated Iranian immigrants and international students in the U.S.J Immigr Minor Health. 2026;28:78-88.
