A top iranian general in an ass strike this month it didnt take long for writing about the filthy impact over the past few weeks hundreds of them were reportedly detained and questioned for hours at Border Crossings and airports while trying to return to the u. S. Many of them like this u. S. Citizen were about to see were coming back from a concert in touch with their families have a look as soon as they realized that we would morning that we were born in iran to lead us to the office and he held us there for 5 hours the many questions. Many personal questions like her facebook account like my parents. Name birth date and my uncles who are in the u. S. They asked about my cousins everything. Meanwhile in the u. S. President donald trump has toned down his threats against iran but he found anger in iran by tweeting support of protesters who have been in the streets for the past 2 days all this tension has iranian americans warning about relatives back in iran as well as backlash at home joining us to discuss what iranian americans are going through we have a teddy bear is a Community Organizer based in chicago we also have. An Iranian American Community leader and organizer a lawyer by is based in new york and is also plaintiffs pointing gets the u. S. Is socalled muslim travel ban and finally we have jamal abdi policy director of the National IranianAmerican Council he joins us today from Sarasota Florida hello everybody sorry to drive you in on this conversation where its not a particularly happy one hoda for instance we showed one example of an iranian american and the story that she had about trying to come back into her own country youve also heard stories like that in the last 23 weeks can you share one. Definitely i think but it is an incredibly terrifying time for iranians iranian americans the United States not only are we feeling for the lives of many of our families in iran but also just trying to get back into the country which many iranians call home i have been in touch with so many people that have been stopped and interrogated question for over 11 hours by u. S. Citizens a clear violation of u. S. Law and a lot of people were saying that there were children sleeping on benches children sleeping on the floor they had no heart to even tell them why they were there and any time that youre on the ns were even asking the customs and Border Protection officers why theyre being held consistently they had no answers theyre like i dont know its a bad time to be you know one was given answers theres this constant detainment and detention and very interrogated questions and so this is a very very just horrifying situation for people who oftentimes have been going through that Border Crossing maybe several times a week for work and now suddenly with everything thats escalating are treated like a quote unquote threat. I just want to remind people that the tension between the u. S. And iran has been going on for years as a time right im just going to show people such as i think they think oh oh i forgot that happened in 780 i forgot that happened in the fiftys im just a little of just wrong with that so we know that it is not news this is not fresh this is news because were covering it right now but its been going on for a while have you seen. Anything like american citizens who also have a right to have heritage not being allowed into the country. We have we have and it happened under this administration it was the 1st week of the gulf of the ministration when. You know he was turning away a green card holders there were certainly citizens who were worried about coming in and who were detained and had their had their phones searched there was famously somebody who worked at nasa who had his phone taken that he feared maybe you know the data was downloaded into a government computer so part of the reason that people are so afraid is that we have already seen this before and at the time of the muslim ban people were openly talking about how bad could this get are going to be internment camps which at the time sounded you know apoplectic and crazy but with this president it just seems like nothing is out of bounds and so the prospect of us going to war with iran and what thats going to mean for us here at home we cant take for granted that the protections that we enjoy are going to be guaranteed for us so its i think thats why people are so afraid and were already seeing you know weve seen what this guy does to us in times of peace and in times when we actually had a diplomatic deal with iran whats going to happen if theres an all out war this is going to constrain him the sky i think the president of the United States money on the not enough to keep the nonscholarly. Yeah i mean no i just it was really saddening to see that timeline that you just showed because everything all events on that timeline has had such a drastic effect on our community and the fact that there are incidents and intend to attack us not just our people in iran but also the domestic front of this in the United States with immigration with surveillance with the way that weve been racialized and the fact that this we care so. Very young people that are all and there and who are the generation who are demonized and believe in the eightys are now going to have to reconcile that with raising a new generation you know we havent broken the cycle of violence and we havent broken the cycle of Human History those kids are going to be the ones that would be affected by the world war 3. So guess you just given a little taste of what its like for you being in the u. S. As. As a ronnie and so iranian americans let me just take you to what happened on sunday to a comment from iran and from officials that this is general who is saying salami he is the commander in chief of the Iranian Revolutionary guard corps this is what he had to say have a listen monogrammed jangly day. We were at war with america and we still are we made a mistake and a number of our compatriots were murdered because of our mistake but it was unintentional we apologize we are sorry but we will make up for it we will not allow any one of our people to get hurt so jamal the general that i was apologizing for the accidental shooting down of a ukrainian line so hes apologizing as i but i am going to protect our people here in iran do you feel having watched the relationship between the 2 countries escalate right now do you feel that were a plot point now where everythings going to just calm down where are we in perspective. No i dont think anythings going to calm down at best were going back to where we were a couple of weeks ago which is this low grade war between the United States and iran. Crippling economic sanctions sanctions that come out every every other day it seems from the trunk ministration and then with iran trying to counter pressure and taking on provocative acts to try to show the United States theres a cost of this and what this really does is it empowers hardline forces on both sides this is the cycle of violence that autocrats dictators and president s with autocratic tendencies. Flourish in you know this is their are their lifeblood and so even after the supposed deescalation which i think there has been it yes collation after the assassination of solomon e. And then the retaliation by iran you mediately saw the United States slapping on new sanctions and those sanctions they actually among other things have put a global embargo imposed by United States on anybody working in textiles and iran so most americans i think of iran they think of you know the persian carpets if you are a carpet we burn iran you are now potentially going to be designated by the United States for sanctions this is how deep the sanctions are going and unless theres an off ramp unless somebody has the ability to step in and actually push for diplomacy were going to see the same inevitable conflicts happen again and the next time we might not be so lucky to have a deescalation but you know we can have an all out war and how do i want to see this meant something because the family you know valid teams are in iran so youre not just watching us sanction something thats on the news its about the lives. Yeah definitely and i think that i i dont feel like sanctions are even a form of deescalation that i agree with everything that jamal said in that this is ongoing and this has been happening in this is only involving the right and the far right and eat on sanctions and the ways in which theyre being applied to your own are an act of warfare looking at many iranians and particularly the working class in iran they are suffering doubly under already government repression and lack of and mismanagement of funds but also us things that affect the daily lives of every single iranian every single day my aunt is a doctor and constantly sees cases of people who are dying just from really preventable you know diseases and so it is affecting every Single Person and particularly the working class and particularly those who are most vulnerable in society and a lot of iranians when i was an iran just this past year mentioned that they already feel like theyre living in wartime to say that a war has been invaded i think would be completely. Respective of whats actually happening on the ground and how many iranians and particularly working class iranians feel today and thats what they are living in an active war time sanctions and the ways in which they are applied to iran are an act of warfare not only are they disenfranchising the most vulnerable in iran and really putting a choke hold on people who are trying to protest but they also actually do strengthen the iranian government just like jamal said in fact theres a whole new economy of smuggling has been developed in iran because of these things sions and as iran controls the borders they literally profit from getting bribes from people smuggling in every day goods like meat or carpets so i think that its doing nothing but actually strengthen the iranian government and likewise as your model also mentioned this is and doing anything to end the proxy wars that iran and the United States are both engaged in in syria and iraq where iraqis are also constantly dying at the hands of both the United States and iran and i think that its so important that this is taken in conversation that right now it feels like we can take a moment to breathe and we should because we need. I also know that this is a longer battle but also. Right now that we dont allow people to feel like think sions are like a calm resolution or that you know the war was abated because iranians in the majority of iranians right now in iran are living like war times at the hand of us. I want to show you the you tube chat thats going on right now and this is moving pretty fast here going back with some for us but im going to bring you up to date with or is saying an alley is watching you have been talking at las says other variants protesting in the streets and actually in support of america and against the government is a yes misinformed jamal. You want are protesting in the springs and i think that theres a theres sort of this by nary. Even that people want to put on the people of iran either theyre for trump or theyre for the regime as if you could look at the United States and say oh them to everybody in the us is pro trump theyre all they all want to ban muslims and hold children at the border and all these other terrible things thats not the case but iranians are fed up you know i mean i know i know family who. Who is out in the protests right now and that doesnt necessarily mean that they support trump but a lot of people do feel like they have nothing to lose anymore and i do think that at the outset of the sanctions what the truck ministration wanted to do was make life miserable for ordinary iranians impose collective punishment. Im jus the nuclear deal so that obama doesnt get credit for that i was i think goal number one for trump but their argument was initially iranians might blame the u. S. But eventually theyll start blaming the regime and i do think that that is the case and this is anecdotal i mean everybody has an opinion about what the people of iran feel based on who they happen to talk to in the country but i think people are fed up and there has been a lot of information and misinformation beamed into iran theres been a whole campaign to try to make the era of the shah look like it was some socialist liberal paradise and that there wasnt secret police torturing people and that you couldnt talk about politics but theres been this romanticized theres been a theres a whole channel dedicated to trying to make the dynasty look like this this paradise and so people are sort of i think similar to trump in the United States make America Great again as if there was this period of time when we were great and we lost that time theres a similar phenomenon happening in iran where some iranians are being convinced that things were better before and so if we can just get rid of this regime we can go back to that unfortunately only anybody has really figured out ok what. Comes next how do you actually were a Democratic Power short of working within the system that doesnt lead to a whole destabilization of iran and potentially turning you wanted to a failed state or one of its neighbors that is a goal to garston violence gets obviously this that you because this came from strikes hes on twitter right now he makes a really good point and its really about the opinions that us sharing with us right now that he has noticed that you are only in agreement with each other and its not lessen the case of iranian americans all agreeing that they caught and so im just wondering if you are going to be looking at money you can stop other perspectives that you hear a run in americans speaking about what would you share to show the difference in opinions. Yeah i mean i so ive been organizing within there i mean American Community for the last 14 years and in that span of time ive actually never taken a stance on iran because i think its really important for iranians to be the voice that we amplify and i think its also important to acknowledge that iranians are extremely politically savvy have had resistance movements for a great deal of time that d we end up in the news and in the media constantly giving space to the leaders but we forget to talk about that people are saying the reason twitter became a Political Tool is because iranians paula popularized that as a Political Tool in 2009 during their resistance so i think thats something to remember but early on in americans are extremely divided on this issue and it has to do with their relationship with the country when they came in and and also honestly we have a group of folks who came out 40 years ago and the trauma and the anger of that has really been what they focused on to the detriment of what iranians in iran want because for those folks theyre around that they remember no longer exists and a lot of them dont have a connection to the iranians the 3 of us have these opinions because our communities are under attack at this moment weve been focusing on this while we talk about the fact that its being. Ended in terms of the political process and thats debatable what i pointed out the fact is that the domestic side of this has been extremely articulate and weve been up all week trying to help people who are being stopped at airports or are being affected who arent being allowed in who are being interrogated were talking about cities that are increasing their surveillance on us were dealing with students who are constantly either people who are incredibly politically savvy and should be allowed to continue the resistance that they want in iran or they are threats but they cant decide that they are both and thats there are american stance right now you cannot choke someone into freedom and i have focused on this community ive given everything i have but im the person thats talking to the parent. Right now were dealing with their kids being harassed theyre american memory span and Attention Span on iran is maybe if were lucky one month usually one week want their runny Attention Span and their memory of whats happened between the United States and iraq is a century you want they are able to understand the complexities and the nuances and in this country we have yet to let them have any kind of what if we focus more on stolen money than we do on the students who are in iran right now he is doing more damage in his death then he should be allowed to be doing right im afraid youve got his death is going to have such a negative impact just as his life did on iranian people and i think that for anyone to think that that this is some moment of being balanced they are forgetting that there are so many people so many resources putting in for a 40 year war thats been going on culturally in this country to demonize us and the trauma that has continued for every generation we are tired of it right now and for anyone to not notice that means theyre not reading their history and they are listening to the same rhetoric that as americans they understand doesnt represent that when it comes to domestic issues but as i was when it comes to Foreign Policy when it comes to my people theyre completely willing to listen to the same voices that they dont want to represent them here im sorry and weve been weve been i love you do not have to apologize and this is why we want to get iranian americans on the stream today what im hearing there is the death of motion the passion the anger so many emotions mixed up that i want to share a serious which. 28 talking to iranian americans about their identity and that identity is so difficult when you have 2 countries but theres so much tension between these 2 countries i want to share with you journey. He is from a. J. Pass he spoke to his father and. Mother i saw your emotion wait till you hear his father have a look have a listen. We came here as a student. We didnt want to stay here but this country made us love this country and the love you know. Chhobi our both you dont have numbers. But nobody can separate. Food. Yes use our identity be kind be our 2 arms you want me to publish it cant you want me to cut this clinic but this is my america. This. Its. Obviously its tough and were in tough times and what really upsets me is that we are just like a lot of coverage of enron sort of deprives iranians of agency its like you know the u. S. Has to go in the u. S. Has to starve iranians they realize how bad the government is and so they go and topple them and america similarly inside the United States a lot of you want americans are deprived of agency and end up we end up kind of fighting amongst ourselves and like if you go on twitter a lot of the conversation is between people who think that trumps path is the right one and although i think thats a minority theyre very vocal theyre well organized i think in some cases you know there was famously a case of the state departments funding a group that was just going around trashing iranian americans Human Rights Watch and crisis group anybody and my organization anybody who disagrees with trumps approach and using people using people to try to divide this community so that we dont have political powers that were actually not organized and we can actually say to our leaders and actually put pressure on our leaders you know 1st of all you want to talk about iran before even start the conversation and the muslim bear you dont get to do anything with iran and talk about how you support iranians until you end the ban on our family members but we cant even do that something that we should all agree upon agree on because people are attacking one another and i think fundamentally everybody probably does you know want change in iran like i would really like to be able to go back to iran im not something that mr a big fan of theocracies you know i dont really lead a life of somebody who is you know credit lets just say that you know but we disagree on how to get there and instead of actually working together Building Political power there are people who use iranian and mana wrote about this there are people who use iranian americans and exploited us in order to fight one another to do. Hide ourselves and when were saying what they want to say they put us on a pedestal and if were saying what they dont want to say they cut us down and try to turn us against one another and so youve got this polygamist microcosm inside this country of even within the Iranian American Community people fighting one another and. I just you know unless we can fix that i just see us continuing to be exploited and unable to actually have that agency that we decry the wanting people not having i have in the past the perspective what is it like being an iranian american right now way when you turn on the nations and single. Parents who havent seen a family single relatives what is it is unusual for most of us. Im not i havent slept in quite a maritime month and i actually keep texting each other before we go to sleep making sure that were going to sleep just because i she mentioned weve been up so late 3 and 4 am sometimes just dealing with sudden crisis is that happened people coming to different airports being having their ballots student visas trash in front of them and having them sent home and told to play for a new one and friends in iran sending me videos from protests and just the anger that they have there and being able to figure out how to live that in a way that wont get you Death Threats by Trump Supporters here and so its just theres like every time you take a turn theres like not just one but like a crowd of just like a barrage of really intense emotions and on top of all of that like you saw its a process like my entire family minus my immediate family lives in iran so on top of just having to like do Rapid Response constantly trying to like figure out how to unify the Iranian Community here how to make sure that trump knows that he is not wanted in iran no matter how many times he tweets in farsi or in english although that was a very good thing honestly i am told by my family speaking french it was quite nice we can write them a note like the rest of his to read. Your resume maybe because he should maybe. Impossible is a lot of this was probably the best famous. Who ever translated that tweet needs to read the rest of the students because youre right there if i get it too bad his beautiful lack of understanding the situation also does not help though but thats thats just thats the thing is that its so ridiculous just you feel like youre being attacked on all sides and then you realize that oh my god i havent even checked in with my own family and i think thats what i feel like a lot of iranians are right now its like we are not only just organizers and like advocates but we also are directly dealing with all of this on a very personal level and it feels like we have to turn ourselves into robots just to be able to process and deal and say up another like 3 am night dealing with this i dont. You know. Your family but im so glad that we checked in on you amanda and jamal thank you so much just one more thought i want to leave you with because its been a very active conversation on social as youve helped us have it and so hendrik says i wish that both sides find a way to talk again because you know conflicts the citizens are much more than their leaders. Truth that from twitter caught say that very often thanks for joining us on the on line next time. You get. Informed opinions the economy is actually whats keeping damo trouble right now an indepth analysis of the days headlines the cold this movement is only getting stronger the more people each know the more resilient the resistant they will become inside story on aljazeera. In the heart of the amazon believe in family is the 10 miles in peril to harvest brazil nuts. Can sing the congo to the capital is an even more dangerous challenge. Risking it tool believe me out. On aljazeera. This is aljazeera. 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