Meisam Rafiei, a member of the Icelandic national taekwondo team, will be allowed to travel to the US Open in Las Vegas. The night before last, Meisam had to leave a WOW Air plane, bound for the US, after being told that due to US President’s executive order, he couldn’t travel to the US, having been born in Iran.
Late yesterday afternoon, Meisam told RÚV he had been contacted by the US Embassy in Iceland and told that being an athlete, he would be granted permission to enter the US. Meisam was born in Iran, but is an Icelandic citizen and has a dual citizenship.
Trump’s executive order temporarily bans the citizens of seven Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen) from entering the US, prohibits the admission of refugees for 120 days, and that of Syrian refugees indefinitely.
Last night, the US embassy in Iceland told RÚV that Icelandic citizens could travel to the US, even if they originally come from one of the seven countries covered by the ban. The embassy explained that those carrying dual citizenship can travel to the US, as long as they have a visa and a valid passport from a country which is not on the ban list.
About a hundred people in Iceland are citizens of countries on Trump’s ban list.
