Zeinab "Bahareh" Barati lives in Fairbanks, but was caring for her cancer-stricken mother in her native country of Iran when President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on immigration last month.
Barati is Muslim and an Iranian citizen, and has a green card for residency in the U.S., where she works as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She's lived in the country since 2008, but when the order was signed on Jan. 27, it concerned her.
Trump's new restrictions banned refugee entries to the U.S. for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocked people from seven majority-Muslim countries — Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Libya — from entering the U.S. for 90 days.
The order also impacted visa holders and green-card holders from those nations. Protesters staged huge demonstrations at airports across the country, and lawyers flocked to terminals to help those who had been detained.
Barati's mind was somewhat eased when, two days after Trump signed the order, administration officials said that green-card holders would have their entry to the U.S. evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But she still wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen as she and her 2-year-old daughter Shler made the long journey home, with stops at airports in Frankfurt and Seattle along the way.
"When they said that all the processes are going to be case by case, I was feeling that I should be OK. If they are fair, I must be OK," she said. "I haven't had anything I must be worried about."
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Her friends at UAF didn't want to take any chances. Several of Barati's colleagues reached out to Alaska's congressional delegation, asking for help in making sure she returned to Fairbanks.
"As soon as they learned my situation was getting complicated, they started talking to people," she said. "I am so, so grateful for the people, that my colleagues took action and they were not indifferent."
When Kelly Drew, Barati's supervisor, heard about the executive order and how it might affect her colleague, she reached out to Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as Rep. Don Young.
"I tried to explain that she was a vital component to our group and posed no threat," said Drew, a professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at UAF.
She heard back from Murkowski's office as well as Young's, which she said asked for more information about Barati's plans to return.
"There was just a great deal of uncertainty, so we just kind of monitored that situation," Murkowski said in a phone interview Sunday.
Barati happened to be flying back to Alaska on Friday, the same day a Washington state judge halted Trump's order nationwide.
Coincidentally, Murkowski and Barati found themselves booked on the same Seattle-to-Fairbanks flight. At Sea-Tac International Airport, the senator said she spoke with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in an effort to make sure Barati got to Fairbanks. Murkowski said the conversation with customs officials was "unsatisfactory" and they wouldn't give her any information.
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Barati had been in Iran since October, and was still doing work for UAF remotely while spending time with her ill mother. She heard from another green-card-holding friend who had just traveled back to the U.S. from Iran (by flying to Canada and then driving over the border) that the journey was not easy.
"She said, 'they stopped me, searched the car, searched luggages, social media accounts,' and then they asked, 'what's your dad doing? What's your brother doing? What's your brother-in-law doing?' " Barati said. "She said, 'be ready to answer those questions and relax and try not to freak out.' "
At the Frankfurt airport, Barati said she was questioned by an official at her gate about how long she'd been out of the U.S., why she was traveling and what her husband did for a living. She was held at one airport checkpoint for about 15 minutes without explanation, she said, until someone told her they were "waiting for the police." When police arrived, she said, they asked her to turn on her laptop before letting her proceed. She eventually arrived in Seattle.
"With about 10 passengers left to board, she comes running up and made the flight (out of Seattle)," said Murkowski, who greeted Barati and her daughter there. They talked for about 15 minutes once they arrived in Fairbanks. "You could tell she was very relieved to have made it as far as she had."
While Barati returned to the U.S. without much trouble, she's still wary about what the national discussion and policies about immigrants and Muslims means for her family's future.
"After all this happening, we feel like some extremists may think it is OK to discriminate against Muslims," she said. "We like Fairbanks, we like Alaska, we love the people. … But if we don't feel safe and we feel like we are not treated fairly, especially if we are not allowed to visit our family abroad, we might decide to go back home or to Canada or some other country."
Her husband, Mohabbat Ahmadi, is also an Iranian Muslim, and a UAF assistant professor in petroleum engineering. Barati is researching a drug that will hopefully prevent brain damage after cardiac arrest and stroke, and she recently formed her own biotech company called Barati Medical.
"We are trying to contribute to society by doing good research, good science," she said. "People who don't know you, who are bombarded by media about Muslims and stuff like that, they're not very kind to you. But when you talk to them and they learn about your personal life, they are kind and supportive."