WANA (Nov 25) – According to U.S. media reports, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained an Iranian professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s David L. Boren College of International Studies while he was traveling to Washington, D.C., to attend an academic conference.

 

Records from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office indicate that the case involving Vahid Abedini was filed on Saturday and transferred on Monday morning to the ICE detention center in Oklahoma City. Randy Lester, the deputy sheriff, confirmed the arrest but declined to provide further details regarding the grounds for Abedini’s detention or the reason for his transfer to ICE custody.

 

A spokesperson for the University of Oklahoma stated on Monday that the university had no comment regarding the professor’s detention. The U.S. Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security also did not respond to media inquiries seeking clarification on the incident.

 

As of Monday evening, ICE’s online detainee locator system had created a file for Abedini, listing Iran as his place of birth. The system, however, did not specify his current place of detention and instead instructed users to “contact ICE for further details”—a phrase that, according to the Huffington Post, has become emblematic of the difficulty in locating individuals held in ICE custody, as detainees are frequently transferred between multiple facilities.

 

News of the detention has prompted strong reactions within the academic community. Joshua Landis, a professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, described the arrest of his colleague as “unjust” in a post on X, noting that Abedini was detained while traveling to the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association. He added that Abedini held a valid H1-B visa, though he emphasized that he is not an immigration attorney.

 

Vali Nasr, a Johns Hopkins University professor who also attended the conference, said the incident was “particularly frightening for young scholars.” He described Abedini as “a bright and promising young researcher” who had secured an endowed chair and been appointed assistant professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Oklahoma following a competitive selection process.

 

So far, none of the relevant U.S. authorities have provided an official explanation for Abedini’s arrest, and his status remains unclear.