Manhattan, KS, February 1, 2017 – Farzaneh Ziaee, Physics Graduate Student, is currently in Tehran, Iran, working on an experiment related to her studies at Kansas State University.

She is now reportedly stranded.

Ziaee’s visa was approved before President Trump’s Executive Order that prohibits citizens of seven countries from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days. Iran is one of the affected countries.

“Renewing my visa to come back to the U.S. underwent an extreme administrative processing, and unfortunately it was approved a few days before the executive order signature,” Ziaee wrote in an email to the Collegian. “Because of this, the issuance my visa, which was approved, already is suspended.”

Ziaee said the visa application took five months to gain approval.

The 90 day waiting period for re-entry into the country has reportedly affected Ziaee’s education and research.

“Waiting for at least three more months for a graduate student doing her research could have detrimental consequences,” Ziaee wrote. “Moreover, I had to finish my core courses. At the beginning of the semester, I had registered in two of them that, due to this problem, I dropped them as there was no anticipation of how long it would take to be able to attend the classes. In addition, my husband was supposed to work as a post doctoral scholar in the department of chemistry, which is suspended, too.”

Richard Myers, KSU President, said that there are approximately 67 students, staff and faculty at K-State affected by the travel restrictions.

“There will probably be a subset [of international students] that will say, ‘is this the kind of country that I want to study in’ if there are other alternatives out there,” said Myers.

Kansas State University reported decreased enrollment in the Fall and Spring semesters, amid budget cuts from the State.