NIAC has long dedicated itself to defending the civil rights of Iranian Americans against various forms of discrimination on the basis of national origin – from outright bans on visas and travel, to harmful exclusions in immigration law, to restrictions on property ownership. Included below are several key updates on NIAC’s work and support for direct legal challenges to various forms of harm against the Iranian-American community.
NIAC Files Amicus Brief in Support of Iranian Visa Applicants Subject to Delays
NIAC recently filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in Mehneh v. Rubio, a consolidated immigration case before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Iranian plaintiffs in this case are seeking advance parole after facing unreasonable and indefinite delays in their visa applications. Nearly 8.5 years ago, Shahnaz Haeri Mehneh filed an immigration visa application on behalf of her foreign husband, Plaintiff Aliasghar Nejat, an Iranian national. And more than 2.5 years ago, Nejat completed his visa interview, and has since yet to receive any final adjudication of his visa application. The ask before the court has been that they compel the defendants – the U.S. government – to make a decision on Nejat’s application, as well as those other Iranian plaintiffs in the consolidation facing similar circumstances at present. For many of these families, these kinds of delays mean years of separation from spouses, children, and loved ones – with no clear explanation or timeline from the government as to when such delays will finally end.
NIAC decided to weigh in as amicus because Iranian-American families are disproportionately impacted by these kinds of delays. Unlike many other immigrant communities, Iranians face unique hurdles: U.S. sanctions and diplomatic isolation of Iran already complicate the visa application process, while many visa applicants are often placed into lengthy and opaque “administrative processing” with no clear end date. Families are left in limbo, often forcing them to live apart, miss births and weddings, or even the chance to care for sick relatives.
In our brief, NIAC highlighted several key points that we believe the court must consider:
- Family separation causes profound harm. Courts have long recognized that the human cost of indefinite delays – emotional distress, mental health struggles, financial hardship, and social isolation – cannot be ignored. Parents miss out on raising their children, couples spend years apart, and loved ones pass away before reunification is possible.
- These delays unfairly prejudice families. Visa backlogs don’t just inconvenience applicants – they destabilize entire households. Spouses shoulder the burdens of parenting alone, families maintain two households across borders, and career and life plans are derailed. These are exactly the kinds of harms the courts must consider when determining whether a delay is “reasonable.”
- Family-based cases are different. The government often points to other immigration cases where multi-year delays have been upheld. But as NIAC explained, those cases generally did not involve family separation. Keeping families divided is not comparable to waiting on a work visa or temporary travel document – it strikes at the core of family unity.
- The government’s justifications don’t outweigh the harm. While officials sometimes argue that delays are needed for “national security” or because of “administrative burdens,” these explanations are rarely backed by evidence in individual cases. NIAC argued that such broad justifications cannot justify keeping families separated for years on end, especially when the alleged security risks are minimal or unsubstantiated.
By filing this brief, NIAC ensured that the voices and lived experiences of the Iranian-American community were represented before the court. Our role as amicus was not simply to repeat the plaintiffs’ arguments, but to give the judges a broader picture of how widespread and harmful these visa delays are, particularly for Iranians, who are uniquely vulnerable to them.
After submitting, the U.S. government filed a motion in the court to strike NIAC’s brief – along with briefs prepared by fellow amici Cato Institute and the American Immigration Council/American Immigration Lawyers Association – claiming that having multiple briefs gave plaintiffs an unfair advantage and that all three amici had not sufficiently shown why their perspectives could not be combined into one filing. The government made these arguments despite the fact that they provided the required, formal consent for each singular brief to be written and filed beforehand. NIAC filed a response outlining the significance of our brief and emphasizing the unique perspective we bring as an Iranian-American organization.
Fortunately, the court fully agreed with NIAC’s response – along with the responses filed by the other amici – and denied the government’s motion to strike. This is recognition that NIAC’s voice is not only unique and essential, but also that our perspective adds meaningful weight that the court acknowledges as valuable.
NIAC Co-signs Amicus Brief to Challenge Alien Land Laws
NIAC joined a coalition of civil rights groups, legal scholars, and fellow nonprofit organizations in support of an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit which poses a constitutional challenge to modern-day “alien land laws” passed and implemented in Arkansas. Fellow amici include the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Asian Law Caucus, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Stop AAPI Hate, National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, and racial justice centers from the UC Davis School of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Rutgers Law School, and New York University School of Law.
The laws in Arkansas that are being challenged in the lawsuit aim to restrict land ownership by companies or individuals connected to foreign governments considered to be adversaries of the United States. This lawsuit was filed after the Arkansas Agriculture Secretary’s Office pursued an investigation of a U.S. citizen, originally from China, after alleging that his business violated the newly established alien land laws. Even though the business owner in question provided proof of his U.S. citizenship as well as proper documentation of his business’ operations, the state disregarded both and referred him to investigation.
The Arkansas laws use the federal International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list of “prohibited foreign parties” to bar individuals from countries like Iran, China, North Korea, and Cuba from owning agricultural land or digital asset mining businesses. As stated in the amicus brief, this reliance on the ITAR directly violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by allowing discrimination on the basis of national origin and race. While ITAR may justify limits on trading military equipment or services, these laws go far beyond that. They also conflict with federal authority by adding extra burdens on lawful immigrants and residents that Congress has not imposed. By tying property rights to ITAR designations, Arkansas oversteps into areas – immigration, foreign affairs, and national security – that belong to the federal government.
The brief also directly challenges Terrace v. Thompson, an archaic “zombie case”, which the Defendants’ side has cited in support of the Arkansas laws. The decision in Terrace notoriously upheld state restrictions on alien land ownership in 1923. However, that decision has since been abrogated by later court decisions, establishing strong equal protection limits on national origin discrimination as a matter of precedent, which the brief highlights.
A critical part of this brief also underscores the unfortunate fact that these laws echo the historical “alien land laws” and era of Japanese internment camps where race and national origin were explicitly used as a pretext for targeting and exclusion. The laws being challenged in Arkansas are part of an ongoing effort across several U.S. states, and even at the federal level, of reviving these “alien land laws” as a matter of standard policy against any stated U.S. adversary, all under the guise of national security. This disturbing trend of property restriction discrimination has directly targeted Iranian nationals, along with Chinese, North Korean, Cuban, and Russian nationals as well. NIAC and fellow partner organizations have been fiercely advocating on this issue since its inception in 2023.
NIAC joined this brief because, as states and the federal government move to revive “alien land laws,” these measures represent a direct threat to the civil rights of the Iranian-American community – and we are determined to oppose them in every way possible.
Legal Effort from Red Eagle Deals Setback to Trump Travel Ban
On August 21, 2025, a federal judge ruled that the State Department must continue processing visa applications of over 82 diversity visa lottery applicants, and that the travel ban cannot be used as a basis to deny these visas. Iranians were among the impacted individuals involved in the lawsuit challenging the denial of these visas, as well as individuals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, and other countries. This ruling marks a critical step forward not only in challenging the ban as a tool for halting visa application processing, but also in shining yet another light on the inherently problematic nature of travel bans as a matter of standard policy that will fail to hold up in U.S. courts.
This ruling is a critical step forward in challenging the ban as a tool for halting visa application processing for people who have been waiting years to reunite with families and loved ones, and build a future here in the U.S.
Like the previous bans, Trump’s latest travel ban has disrupted and ruined countless lives and separated families for no national gain. In the case of the Diversity Visa Lottery program, many Iranians have applied, been accepted, gone through extensive vetting and application review, and been in the final stages of processing after years of waiting – only to be shut out at the finish line by Trump’s senseless bans. This cruel action has crushed the dreams of aspiring Americans from Iran and other countries.
As a sign of the difficult road ahead in restoring justice to our immigration system, the ruling did make clear that the government can still block entry to these individuals through other means, given that visas confirmed to be valid only provide eligibility for entry into the U.S., but do not guarantee such entry. Customs and Border Protection officers still hold broad discretion to deny entry, and airlines often refuse to board travelers with valid visas to avoid penalties and return costs if passengers are turned away at the U.S. border; the U.S. can itself also direct airlines to prevent passengers with valid visas from entering if they are subject to restrictions such as the travel ban. So while we celebrate the significant win provided by this recent ruling and the important precedent it now sets, we recognize that considerable obstacles remain.
Together, this latest court ruling and NIAC’s ongoing legal and policy efforts send a powerful message: discriminatory bans – from immigration to property ownership – as well as indefinite delays within the U.S. immigration system cannot withstand judicial scrutiny when their discriminatory motivations and devastating human impact are brought to light.
To support Iranians impacted by the ban and aggressive immigration enforcement, NIAC has established a Travel Ban and Immigrant Justice Resource Center. Families can find resources and assistance at niacouncil.org or by contacting [email protected].
