On January 5th, the Nouhi family boarded a flight from Doha to Miami. It was a routine trip for the Persian family of four, who all hold US green cards and split their time between Florida and Iran. What happened when they landed, however, was anything but routine.

Ushered into a room at 4pm with the other Iranians from their flight, the Nouhis spent four hours answering questions ranging from the mundane to the inappropriate: “Why do you have so many tattoos?” and “Why would you go back to Iran?” among them. Finally, at 8pm, they were allowed into the United States, a country where they are legal residents.

The Nouhis’ story is a common one under the Trump administration, which began its tenure by infamously trying—and failing—to impose the so-called Muslim Ban. But more recently, Iranians with visas have been turned away in increasing numbers at the discretion of the border patrol agents at their US port of arrival. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, at least 10 Iranian students with valid visas have been denied entry to the US since August.

Negin Owliaei, an inequality researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies and a Nouhi family friend said, “It’s always horrifying to see that even when a judge orders that a student should be able to stay in the country that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can just ignore them. It’s a reminder that the rule of law doesn’t mean anything if you have no way of backing it up and your institutions are failing.”

The breakdown of the visa process is a reflection of the escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. On January 3rd, Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US military strike. Iran responded in kind, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif calling it an “act of international terrorism” and Ayatollah Khamenei promising “severe revenge.”

In the aftermath, these diplomatic tensions have rebounded on unsuspecting Iranians trying to make a life in the US. Two weeks after Soleimani’s death, there was an uproar in Boston when Mohammed Abadi, a student enrolled at Northeastern University with a valid visa, was turned away at Logan airport for reasons that remain unclear. Although a Boston judge granted an emergency petition to allow him to stay for 48 hours while lawyers fought on his behalf, Abadi had already been put on a plane out of the country.

According to Sameer Ahmed, a professor of Immigration Law at Northeastern University, “CBP contends that there is little to no oversight over the CBP officers’ decisions...This is truly a case where due process goes to die.”

For the Nouhis and others like them, the struggle will continue as they try to maintain a life moving freely between both nations. In the words of Ms. Owliaei, “We did everything we could to prepare them, to educate them on their rights, but it was not enough. Now, they’re living in limbo.”