An Iranian professor at the University of Oklahoma has been released from immigration detainment, three days after his weekend arrest at an airport in Oklahoma City, according to a statement he posted online and a colleague at the university.
Vahid Abedini, an assistant professor of Iranian studies, was on his way to the annual conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Washington, D.C., on Saturday when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Joshua Landis, the co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said.
It is still unclear why Dr. Abedini was arrested. Dr. Abedini posted on his LinkedIn page early Tuesday morning that he was “relieved to share that I was released from custody tonight.”
“It was a deeply distressing experience, especially seeing those without the support I had,” he wrote. He thanked friends and colleagues at the university, the Middle East Studies Association “and the wider Iran studies and political science community for helping resolve this.”
He could not be reached immediately for additional comment.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said by text Tuesday morning that Dr. Abedini “was detained for standard questioning and was released.”
Dr. Landis said that Dr. Abedini, a political scientist who studies Iranian elites and political factions, was in the United States legally on an H-1B visa, which employers use to hire foreign workers with specialized skills. Dr. Abedini had started at the University of Oklahoma in Norman this year, and as he switched jobs, he was in the process of obtaining a visa sponsored by his new employer, with the university’s in-house counsel overseeing the application, according to Dr. Landis.
“We have done this a hundred times,” Dr. Landis said on Monday. “He is completely legal.”
The University of Oklahoma had declined to comment on Monday. The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment after Dr. Abedini’s release on Tuesday.
Before coming to the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Abedini had worked at the University of Arkansas as a visiting assistant professor in its political science department, according to his bio on Oklahoma’s website and his LinkedIn page. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Florida International University.
This fall, Dr. Abedini was teaching classes called “The Global Politics of Oil” and the “Political Economy of Development,” according to an online course catalog. Police records show that he had received a speeding ticket in Ohio in September 2024.
Other international scholars have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown this year, such as the Georgetown researcher Badar Khan Suri, a native of India, and Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student from Turkey. Both were arrested and detained last spring but were ultimately released after legal challenges arose.
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