Professor of Arabic Barred From Returning to U.S. from Canada, Case Under Review

The Egyptian-born academic, [Mohammad Ramadan Hassan Salama,] got a rude awakening June 20 when a consular official, without explanation, stamped "canceled'' on his temporary visa and refused to issue another visa. Instead, Salama said, he was fingerprinted, questioned and told he could not return to the United States until he received security clearance.

It was just a shock for me, he said by phone on Monday. It is very Kafkaesque. They just say, 'We will contact you.' I am Egyptian, and Egypt is a very hot country right now that has produced terrorists. They disregarded my Ph.D., my scholarship. My marriage, my kids were blindly disregarded, and I was told I could not come back.

…

Salama, 38, began teaching at San Francisco State a year ago. He arrived in the United States seven years ago, has an American wife and two children, and received his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.