Be truly recognized in the American political process

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

When traveling, my family and I, especially since September 11, have been subjected to some of the cruelest scrutiny, capricious interrogations and egregious body and luggage searches, unprecedented in our history. When feeling outraged, the painful dilemma facing us is that the airport agents constantly admonish us with the phrase, “Remember September11?” as if Iranians, or any other Iranian-Americans, let alone we, have ever had to with any of such criminal acts. Such humiliating and denigrating mistreatment occurs in the presence of hundreds of onlookers, who stare at us with hate and suspicion.

My wife and I may have over our lifetimes become painfully attuned to such mistreatment and we internalize and deal with it as a tragic comedy. It has, however, now hit our U.S. born children devastatingly, especially our 11-year old daughter, who, when struggling to board Air France with my wife, enroute to Tehran to visit her ailing and aging grandparents on December 14, 2007, was frightened and literally shell-shocked. The traumatic pain inflicted upon her will remain with her for the rest of her life.

My daughter, while at the airport had noticed the profiling of “Middle Eastern” looking passengers for excessive scrutiny, where the mainstream, mostly of European descent blonde Americans were checked in rather expeditiously; the same observation was later made independently by a blond American of German heritage friend of ours at the same JFK airport. My daughter is a superb young girl, with an IQ that stands among the top 1% of the population; she is an excellent model gifted student at school, and has had the ambitious aspiration to move into the highest Office in the U.S.

After her ordeal, I only hope that her long-term aspirations have not been detrimentally undermined. She has been horrified to return home to her place of birth, New York, begging us to move out of the US to live more peacefully elsewhere. To sum it, no Iranian-American seems to have been mistreated anywhere else, including their homeland where they may travel as ex-patriates, to the extent of trauma inflicted here in the U.S. Moreover, there are ample cases of visa denials to our families with no explanations given. For those few exceptional visas granted, mostly to our senior parents, the individuals upon entry to the U.S. are repeatedly strip-searched and interrogated with much humiliation, with mostly irrelevant politically or intelligently charged and/or personal questions, for hours.

And last but not least,

-Have we, that is, our government, ever explained why the close family members of Iranian-Americans whom we have petitioned for immigrations, must await overseas for up twenty-five years, whereas the government claims even with the current backlog, such cohorts are unusually processed in “less than a few years?”

- Have we ever asked whose interest it serves, for parents of Iranian-Americans to travel up to five times to a third country for U.S. visa processing and await anxiously for over a year before only a few of them are allowed to visit their American offspring here?

- Has anyone ever asked the DHS, the CIA or the FBI and/or the administration how the zealot U.S. security of the nation as a whole, which costs us the taxpayers, hundreds of billion dollars annually, has led to any measurable substantiated security?

- Have you ever asked the administration and the federal agencies, with the above scrutiny and intimating surveillance in effect, whether or not they have found any corroborated terrorist suspects especially those of Iranian descent (no one I opine) thereby curtailing a specific terrorist plot, and thus justifying such huge financial burden and compromise on the civil and constitutional rights of citizens?

- Have you ever asked the policy makers, administration and the federal agencies whether there has ever been a convicted Iranian terrorist, especially from among the one million Iranian-Americans, which might justify such mass intimidation? The irony of this is that the crime rate among Iranian-Americans stands at one-fiftieth of our national average, according to U.S. census and independent analysis, but that has not deterred the feds to continually intensify their illegal surveillance and baseless intimidations and prosecutions of the Middle Eastern ethnicities on bogus grounds.

I understand that when these grievance statements were submitted to various government agencies that a congressional aid or a junior staff member might have reviewed this communiqué to decide whether or not to provide a synopsis and possible recommendation. If they answered NO to any or all the above questions, it is incumbent upon government officials take all steps necessary in order to correct what has gone wrong far too long. The time for action is far over due, as the country has been subjected to some of the most tumultuous, costliest and polarizing sham schemes never recorded in its two hundred plus years of history, for which no one can show any results anchored on sound cost-benefit model.

In summary, a sustainable diverse bloc of votes, therefore, needs to be finally together, not only led by the Iranian-Americans but more effectively with substantive input by all Americans of Middle Eastern, South and Central Asians, and North African heritage. This is the effective 'American' way to advocate for, and truly earn our civil and constitutional rights. That vision may require a $10 annual contribution per person (that is $100M for 10 million of the above citizens), massive voter registrations and substantive participations in the political process in our country. It would be the best investment ever made as we each uphold the American ideals and the Constitution while safeguarding our very own personal and professional aspirations in life.