“I feel tired of being cast aside and of being forced to prove my humanity at every turn,” Elham Khatami, the outreach director for the National Iranian American Council, told TIME magazine. (Photo: Banned Grandmas/Instagram)
When the Supreme Court partially reinstated President Donald Trump’s ban last month, it included in its ruling an exemption for those who have “a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
The State Department later released its definition of “bona fide relationship” which, as reports quickly observed, concluded that grandparents don’t qualify.
Rights groups protested the definition, arguing that it is overly restrictive and “arbitrary.”
Holly Dagres, a 31-year-old Iranian-American, soon found a more effective form of dissent: Posting pictures of “banned grandmas” on Instagram. The hashtags #GrandparentsNotTerrorists and #BannedGrandmas spread rapidly and major media outlets picked up on her account, which at present includes more than a dozen pictures of grandmothers who are currently barred from reuniting with their families due to Trump’s ban.
The pictures demonstrate “who [Trump’s] actually keeping out,” Kia Hamadanchy, a Democrat running for Congress in Orange County, California, told TIME magazine.
Trump’s ban, Hamadanchy concluded, undermines the vision of America as a “shining beacon of hope for everyone.”
“We don’t recognize this country anymore, and it’s a terrifying feeling,” added Elham Khatami, the outreach director for the National Iranian American Council, whose family missed her wedding ceremony because of Trump’s ban. “I feel tired of being cast aside and of being forced to prove my humanity at every turn.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BV-GQkuHTrf/
This is Alison's mamani. Probably guilty of too much mach-o-boos.
A post shared by Banned Grandmas (@bannedgrandmas) on Jul 5, 2017 at 5:14am PDT
Amir just finished law school in NY, but his grandma is barred from visiting to celebrate him.
A post shared by Banned Grandmas (@bannedgrandmas) on Jul 1, 2017 at 10:00am PDT
@rezmatic's mamani is now banned from the US? Her crime: giving Reza jaan the knowledge to educate the masses.
A post shared by Banned Grandmas (@bannedgrandmas) on Jun 30, 2017 at 8:32am PDT
Look how Aziz this mamani is! #nobannowall #muslimban
A post shared by Banned Grandmas (@bannedgrandmas) on Jun 30, 2017 at 11:53am PDT
Meet @anpour's late grandmother. She used to come to the US for medical treatments for her hearing. Posting this in memoriam of her and other mamanis who come to the US for medical reasons.
A post shared by Banned Grandmas (@bannedgrandmas) on Jun 30, 2017 at 12:33pm PDT
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