An Iranian-Canadian travelling from Toronto to the United States last weekend, amid conflicting information about whether the U.S. travel ban applied to dual citizens, says he was aided by a kind American stranger.
Neuroscientist Mohsen Omrani tells CTV News Channel he was in line at Billy Bishop Toronto City Centre Airport on Sunday when a woman in front of him apologized for being slow. He says he told her not to worry because he was probably going to be in Newark airport all day, due to “stupid rules” put in place by U.S. President Donald Trump two days earlier.
The apologetic woman turned out to be Barbara Berger Optowsky, the former executive director of New York City Bar. She approached Omrani during his flight, handed him her card and promised to wait until he was cleared by security.
“I’m an American citizen, I’m a lawyer, I can be helpful,” Berger Optowsky recalls thinking. “It’s time to act, even if it’s one very small thing.”
Omrani, a post-doctoral fellow at Rutgers University, travels back and forth to Toronto on a regular basis to attend to his company Canarmony. He says he is used to getting extra questions about his Iranian heritage, but says it usually takes 10 minutes.
This time, Omrani says he was questioned for 20 minutes and then told “another team is coming to interview you.”
But instead of another interview, a border guard came in and told him “somebody out there ... is really looking after you,” he says. The guard was referring to Berger Optowsky, who had been advocating for his release.
Berger Optowsky says she ended up apologizing to the guard who she had been pressuring to release Omrani, and she was surprised by his response.
“He said, ‘Don’t ever apologize for being patriotic,’” she said.
Omrani says he was inspired to drive to New York City after that to join a protest against the travel ban “in return for what Barbara did to me -- for sticking out her neck for me.”
Although a U.S. State Department official said on Saturday that citizens from the seven Muslim-majority countries facing a 90-day travel ban would not be let into the U.S., the Trump administration later clarified that dual-citizens can still enter the U.S.
