The u. S. And iran have been trading threats for weeks truce is holding for now but many iranian americans cant help worrying about the future have you been affected by the tension between the 2 countries if you have twitter so that i live chat to get your comments your experiences right into todays episode of the stream. After the u. S. Killed a top iranian general in an airstrike this month it didnt take long for iranian americans to fill the 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 home to the u. S. Many of them like this u. S. Citizen were about to see were coming back from a concert in town with their families have a look as soon as i said we were born in we were born in iran to lead us to the office and he held 4 or 5 and i asked the asked many questions. Many personal questions like facebook you can write my parents. Name birth and my uncles who are in the u. S. He asked about my concerns 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 worrying about relatives back in iran as well as backlash at home joining us to discuss what iranian americans are going through we have how to 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 fighting against 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 that 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 line im just going to show people something they think oh i forgot that happened in 780 i forgotten that happened in the fiftys im just i just love this oromo that round 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 ever anything like american citizens who also have a right inherited not been 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 thing the president of the United States money on not enough to keep the knowledge. 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 gymnastic 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. And their and. 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 ronny 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 hossein salami he is the commander in chief of the Iranian Revolutionary guard corps this is what he had to say have a listen mortgage any day and. 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 that general that i was apologizing for the accidental shooting down of a ukrainian liner so hes apologizing as i say 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 as a play a 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 or their lifeblood and so even after the supposed deescalation which i think there has been it yes collation after the assassination of solar money and then the retaliation by iran you mediately saw the United States slapping on new sanctions and other 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 were in 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 to yes i want to think this means something because the family you know valid teams are in iran so youre not just watching this as such and something thats on the news is about the last. 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 in building the right the far right in iran but sanctions in 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 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 theres a longer battle but also this is so in total right now that we dont allow people to feel like things 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 backwards and forwards but im going to bring you up to date with or is saying elliott is watching you or 3 of you talking in las says other variants protesting in the streets and actually in support of america and against their government is any less misinformed jamal. You know only as are protesting in the springs and i think that theres a theres sort of this by nary a. You know 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 and 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 forge a Democratic Path short of working within the system that doesnt lead to a whole destabilization of iran and potentially turning iran into a failed state or one of its neighbors that isnt engulfed in constant violence gets ever throw this at you because this came from streitz whos 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 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 say 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 about iranians are extremely politically savvy have had resistance movements for a great deal of time that we end up in the news and in the media constantly giving space to the leaders but we forget to talk about this 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 how 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 wrong 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 as 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 who 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 are 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 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 that 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 tha