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They came to the United States to become artists and to tell stories they could not tell at home. Stories of protest, repression and resistance of Iranians pushing back against the violence of their government.
And for years, Ali, 26, Sofly, 41, and Sarah, 27, did just that.
Along with other UMass Dartmouth art students, Ali, Sofly and Sarah, who asked not to be identified by their full names, spent their master’s programs in paneled cubicles inside the Art & Design Studios, a former Bed Bath & Beyond. Ali covered wooden boards in black ink, drawing mythical creatures that echoed the unrest in the streets. Sofly worked with textiles, turning ancient Persian symbols of freedom into emblems of resistance. Sarah painted women and bodies, capturing the violence used against protesters.
Art was their way of supporting people back home. Here, they had a level of freedom and safety their relatives and friends do not have.
Then, in January, the Trump administration suspended visa issuance for nationals of 19 countries, including Iran. For Ali, Sofly and Sarah, it meant their plan to apply to live and work in the United States was no longer possible. With two months left until graduation and no visa options, they may be forced to return to Iran, where their portfolios are now an open record of dissent in the eyes of the Iranian government.
“We are politically active against our own country, our own government,” Ali said. “So it is too dangerous for us to go back.”
“There’s no way I can go to Iran,” Sarah said. “I could be arrested or executed if the Islamic Republic stays.”
About a quarter of the world’s 1.7 million Iranian immigrants live in the United States, more than in any other country, according to the Pew Research Center.
Iran also ranks among the top 30 countries sending students to the United States, according to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program’s 2024 report. As of 2024, more than 13,000 Iranian students were enrolled in U.S. institutions.
Now, as war rages between the United States and Iran, students are caught in between. They follow what is happening back home, hoping for change, while facing the possibility that U.S. immigration policies could put them at risk.
“We are fighting on several fronts,” Sofly said. “There is hopelessness from our own country, and hopelessness over here.”
OPT: the only way to stay
From the day she was interviewed for admission to UMass Dartmouth, Sarah made it clear that her work would focus on something she had never done before: political art. A medical school graduate in Iran, Sarah worked in advertising before being accepted to a fully funded illustration program at UMass Dartmouth in 2023.
“It was always in the back of my mind,” she said, sweeping a brush soaked in shades of pink across her latest painting. “In my interview here, I told them that I’m going to work out the stories of people in my country. Especially women’s stories.”
Her work has already made its way into galleries across the country. It’s been shown at the 8th Louisiana Biennial: National Juried Exhibition at Louisiana Tech University; at the University of North Carolina; in the Unfinished Woman exhibit at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod; and at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Connecticut. More recently, it caught the attention of the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the top art and design schools in the world, which offered her a teaching position after she graduates from UMass Dartmouth.
However, Sarah currently has an F-1, or student visa. To take that job, she would need Optional Practical Training, known as OPT, a status tied to student visas that allows someone who graduates from a full-time degree program in the United States to work in their field for up to one year.
The program is meant to give students a chance to gain experience based on the degree they earned here. For the most part, OPT is the only way for graduates to get authorization to remain in the United States and work, said Bennett Savitz, an immigration attorney in Boston.
“Other than that, if they don’t have practical training, they would have to go back to their own country right away,” Savitz said.
Effective Jan. 1, the Presidential Proclamation “Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States” led the Department of State to fully suspend visa issuance — both new visas and renewals — for nationals of 19 countries, including Iran.
It doesn’t just restrict people from the listed countries from getting a visa to come into the United States, Savitz said. It also comes with what’s called an adjudication pause, meaning that people from those countries cannot get any other applications, including OPT, approved because those applications are put on hold.
“They will be in limbo because they can’t work until they get it approved,” he said. “And if it’s paused and not going to be approved, they’re just sitting and waiting. Eventually, time runs out and they have to leave.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser confirmed to The Light that OPT applications for Iranian nationals are banned and will not be processed under the presidential proclamation.
“The Trump administration is reviewing every immigration benefit to protect American jobs,” Tragesser said in an email statement, arguing OPT allows foreign students to “secure long-term employment in the U.S., undermining qualified American workers and depressing wages.”
Going back to Iran is not an option for Sarah. Not after the work she has been doing.
At UMass Dartmouth, she kept her promise. Her work has focused on the families of those killed in protests, painting the suffering of relatives who keep the bodies of their loved ones at home for days, just to avoid interference from the government. Authorities often rush burials into the night and families are told to pay, sign pledges, or deny their relatives were protesters, blaming “terrorists.”
“We are fighting on several fronts. There is hopelessness from our own country, and hopelessness over here.”
— Sofly, Iranian artist
“Sarah is the most passionate and resilient person I’ve ever met,” said Jess Worby, an illustration professor at UMass Dartmouth who is familiar with the work of the three students. “She sees line, shape, and color the way a painter should. But she’s also a keen observer of the human condition.”
Worby said the students have always been incredibly talented, but recent events in Iran have lit a fire in them, creating a sense of urgency in their work.
“Visual art has a power to say things that words can’t,” said Worby. “A big part of visual art is that some things can’t be understood through words. That’s why we’re doing this.”
The risk of political art
Art had already incriminated and saved Ali once.
In 2022, after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the headscarf law, protests spread across the country. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets. Ali was among them, in the city of Urmia, doing stencil calligraphy as part of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.
When the police arrested him, he said they interrogated him for 12 hours and beat him to force a confession. Then they brought him, handcuffed and hooded, before a judge.
“I told him I was a painter,” Ali said. The judge asked for a piece of paper and a pen and told him to prove it.
“So I drew,” he said. “I drew with my eyes covered and my hands tied. I drew my portrait.”
He never saw his art. But he said it must have been good, because soon after, he was released. Ali knows he got lucky that day. He does not think it will happen again. His detention and forced confession were recorded, he said, and remain in the possession of the Iranian government as proof of his dissent. Returning to Iran now would be dangerous.
“Art has always had a political dimension in Iran,” said Misagh Parsa, a retired professor of sociology at Dartmouth College. “Artists are among the most creative people. They use their imagination in ways that challenge the established order.”
Parsa, who is from Iran, has researched and written extensively on Iranian history and revolution. He explained that in Persian culture, art — especially poetry — has long been used to criticize governments indirectly, making it a powerful tool.
“It creates, it innovates, it comes up with new and often unexpected ways of expressing things,” Parsa said. “And because of that, governments feel threatened. They can be very ruthless in dealing with artists and activists. The Islamic Republic is no exception.”
One of the most recent cases happened in mid-May in Canada. The body of Masood Masjoody, a former math instructor and outspoken critic of the Iranian regime, was found in Mission, British Columbia. Police charged two Iranian nationals with first-degree murder, calling it a targeted incident.
Vahid Beheshti, a British-Iranian journalist, dissident and founder of Iran Front, said he has received multiple threats in recent weeks. He described the killing of Masjoody, a board member of his group, as a warning that the regime’s reach extends far beyond its borders.
Parsa said dissidents are generally safer in the United States than in Europe or elsewhere, in part because there are fewer Iranian operatives here. “They are more afraid of the United States doing something if they start killing a lot of people here,” he said. “The United States has acted very swiftly. They’re intimidated by what the U.S. might do.”
What comes next
Sofly also arrived in the United States in 2023 and started her master’s program as a fiber artist at UMass Dartmouth, focusing her work on symbolism, specifically paisley, a pattern that originates from the Persian cypress tree, or Sarv, seen as a symbol of resistance against darkness, immortality, and endurance in Persian tradition. It is often depicted in ancient Persian art, including on the walls of Persepolis, linking current protesters to a pre-Islamic Iranian identity. Today, it has become a metaphor, signifying Iranian resilience in the face of repression.
When The Light first interviewed Sofly and Sarah, they said they wanted to use their full names in the story, but as time progressed, they changed their minds. “I’m just not sure what will happen in the future,” said Sofly. “I don’t want to put my situation at risk.”
The students now say that publishing their full names concerns them not only because of the Iranian government, but because it could jeopardize their immigration status in the United States.
In a few weeks, Sofly, along with Ali and Sarah, will present their final work. And in May, they will graduate from UMass Dartmouth. After that, Sofly said, everything is uncertain.
“If we cannot get OPT and have to wait for it, especially when you’re not able to work, how long can we survive?” she said. “Maybe one month.”
UMass Dartmouth, which helps students navigate the OPT application process, confirmed delays in approvals for at least two students from countries affected by the visa restrictions. But this may be just the beginning. The university said it currently has 37 students from a broader list of 39 countries for which the United States has fully or partially suspended entry and visa issuance.
Savitz said universities could play a role by challenging the policy in court, and would have an incentive to do so in support of their students.
“Of course it hurts their enrollment when they can’t get students in from those countries,” he said. “And if students can’t get work authorization, it makes them less likely to come here and study.”
Asked whether there is any intention to file a lawsuit, the University of Massachusetts Office referred The Light to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which declined to comment.
On Jan. 9, a class action lawsuit involving more than 300 plaintiffs was filed in federal court in Atlanta against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services over the hold on immigration applications. The plaintiffs are part of a broader group of nationals from 39 countries facing full or partial suspensions, with most of them from Iran, which is subject to a full suspension.
The plaintiffs had already been legally admitted to and entered the United States and possess valid immigration status, the complaint states. “Plaintiffs now face an indeterminate wait on taking the next steps in their immigration journey, potential loss of employment as statuses expire and work authorization ends, and even the potential for removal proceedings to be initiated against them due to their status expiring while their benefit requests remain pending.”
Jesse Bless, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said they are waiting for the judge to rule on a motion for a preliminary injunction, which could lift the pause until a final judgment is reached.
If the judge rules in their favor, Bless said there could be significant changes.
“Hopefully [that] will convince DHS, and maybe the president, that going back to just business as normal for people who are in the country, who are doing the right thing and trying to follow the rules, is the smartest policy rather than refusing to let them work or make people lose status,” he said. “It’s just causing more unnecessary chaos in the system.”
Bless said the government’s decision to implement these restrictions was short-sighted, made in reaction to events in November in Washington, D.C., when an Afghan national shot and killed a member of the National Guard.
“It’s just time for our country to really grow up and understand that you can’t stereotype people because of their status or where they’re born,” he said. “I think most of the public actually gets that now. We just need our policymakers to get that as well.”
Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org.
More by Eleonora Bianchi
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The US has a history of welcoming war refugees in the past. Artists enrich communities culturally and economically. I hope individuals, and our community as a whole will appeal to our better angels and officials to protect, support, and embrace these students.