Box 3. Never apply for a US visa again!
From the following article:
Nature 427, 190-195(15 January 2004)
doi:10.1038/427190a
Zahra Fakhraai (pictured) and Sina Valadkhan had it all worked out. In May 2002, they were planning to relocate from Tehran to Massachusetts, having each received an offer to study towards a PhD at a prestigious US institution. Fakhraai would conduct research in polymer physics at Boston University, while her husband, Valadkhan — a gold-medal winner at the 1996 International Physics Olympiad in Oslo, Norway — would study mechanical engineering across the Charles River in Cambridge, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Because the United States has no diplomatic representation in Iran, the pair travelled to the US embassy in Ankara, Turkey, to apply for the necessary visas. They took medical records, academic records from Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, photographs, passports and letters that declared their intent to return to Iran after their studies. But their applications were rejected on the spot.
Two weeks later the couple tried again and were rejected a second time. On this visit, Fakhraai claims they were laughed at and granted only brief interviews by US consular officers. Fakhraai says that officials dismissed her husband's documents as possible forgeries. "They told me that I didn't have enough evidence that I would go back to Iran," Fakhraai adds. When she pointed out a standing offer to resume her research at the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics in Tehran, Fakhraai says that the officer told her he didn't need to see it.
The couple persevered and tried again in June — this time at the US embassy in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The end result was the same, says Fakhraai: their applications were rejected. "I can understand that Americans are worried about their security, but I don't understand why people like me are a threat to their security," says Fakhraai.
Discouraged, the pair returned to Tehran, deferred their admissions to the Massachusetts schools, and applied to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. The new offers arrived in October, and the couple returned to Dubai again. At the American embassy the officer rejected their visa applications once more. When Fakhraai asked why, she claims she was yelled at: "Never apply for a US visa again!"
She didn't. The couple returned home, and in November 2002, Fakhraai and Valadkhan were granted study visas from the Canadian government on the day of their application. One year into her studies at Waterloo, Fakhraai is pleased with her move to Canada. "You never feel like a foreigner," she says. "Living and studying here is one of the best experiences I've had."
