President Donald Trump’s executive order Friday—a decree that temporarily bans citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran—has left Zabeti, his wife, and thousands of would-be immigrants at a loss. “You invest something,” says Zabeti about his decision to move to the U.S., “your life, energy, and ideas—everything. And then one sudden decision changes things.”

At Columbia University, GSAPP students installed text reading, “We Won’t Build Your Wall,” in the architecture building’s windows.
At Columbia University, GSAPP students installed text reading, “We Won’t Build Your Wall,” in the architecture building’s windows. © Biayna Bogosian

The shockwaves are resonating throughout the architectural community as designers, like Zabeti, and students struggle to make sense of their visa status and their options.

Architecture schools felt the effects immediately. According to the website FiveThirtyEight, 17,354 visas were issued for university students from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen in the 2015-16 academic year—many for architecture.

“None of us know exactly what the implications [of the ban] are,” says Nader Tehrani, the dean of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture—and an Iranian-American. “We are working to better understand them.”

To many, the scope of the order is nebulous. Tuesday morning, Toronto-based architect Nima Javidi, an assistant professor at Cooper Union, told RECORD he was detained at Newark Liberty International Airport for two hours, in spite of his Canadian citizenship. “To be fair, [the airport officials] were unclear of proper procedure,” says Javidi, who was born in Iran. “But it’s also worth noting that they were told that whoever you see born in those countries, take them in and keep them for a while.” ... Some students at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) are facing a similar impasse. Though no architecture students were caught outside of the country at the time of Trump’s order, the ban, says Dean Amale Andraos, is “against all the values we stand for as a university committed to welcoming students and faculty, and to the free exchange of ideas and people.” She adds, “It’s quite devastating.”

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