Update: Iranian Researcher Detained at US Airport

The cancer scientist and his family have been sent home, and an official claims that his detention was not triggered by the Trump travel ban.

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FLICKR, HILDGRIMUpdate (July 13): Dehnavi and his family were sent back to Iran after being held at Boston’s Logan International Airport by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for several hours earlier this week.

“This individual was deemed inadmissible to the U.S. based on information discovered during the [customs] inspection for reasons unrelated to the [Trump administration’s] Executive Order,” the CBP says in a statement reported by several news outlets, including the Boston Globe.

According to the Associated Press and other media outlets, Iranian state television showed footage today of Dehnavi serving as the head of a student branch of a voluntary paramilitary militia in Iran, several years ago.

The television report also included a comment from Dehnavi, the Associated Press reported: “The topic of our research was health and saving ill people fighting cancer from this dangerous disease, but they didn’t allow us entry, despite, as I mentioned, all the efforts made by the American academic community.”

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Meet the Author

  • Bob Grant

    From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.
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