Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, is helping a Clemson University graduate who is unable to return to the United States because of President Trump’s executive order.
Sen. Graham met with Nazanin Zinouri’s employer, Modjoul, and co-workers on Monday afternoon in downtown Clemson.
Nazanin Zinouri is a 2016 Clemson Ph.D. graduate who has lived and worked in Greenville for seven years. In a Facebook post, Zinouri said that she was attempting to fly back to Greenville from Dubai after a visit to see her family in Tehran, Iran.
“After waiting in the line to get my documents checked and after 40 minutes of questions and answers, I boarded the plane to Washington, only to have two TSA officers getting in and ask me to disembark the plane!!! Yes after almost 7 years of living the the United States, I got deported!!! [sic],” Zinouri wrote.
Her post has since gone viral with more than 180,000 shares as of Monday morning.
Graham said his office is talking to the Department of Homeland Security and is trying to get Zinouri back to Clemson.
“My goal is to protect America from terrorists coming into our country, not keep this young lady out,” Graham said, “She’s smart, she’s intelligent, she adds value to our country and I’ll find a way to fix this problem.”
Graham also said that President Trump’s executive order, which temporarily bans immigrants and refugees from seven countries (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen) from traveling to the U.S. for 90 days, needs to be modified and streamlined.
“I don’t think you can have an executive order that would deny someone’s who already been given a legal status the inability to come back into the country without good reason,” Graham said, “People like this young lady who already has a legal status, you just can’t arbitrarily yank it out from under her.”
While Sen. Graham met with Zinouri’s employer and co-workers, a crowd gathered outside of Modjoul’s office in downtown Clemson to express their support for Zinouri.
We will continue to update this story as it develops.