I am an Israeli-British dual citizen, and I am banned for life from entering America. According to the document I received in August 2019 at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, the State Department made this decision based on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that “prohibits issuance of a visa to a person who at any time engaged in terrorist activities or was associated with a terrorist organization. This is a permanent ineligibility.”
Efforts via private channels to have this ban rescinded have proved fruitless. The U.S., a country I’ve often visited for work and to see cousins and friends, remains closed to me.
I have never been charged with any offense related to terrorism. I have, however, spent a fair amount of time in the company of members of organizations on the terrorism lists of both the U.S. and the European Union. That’s because I’ve spent the past two decades as a journalist covering the Middle East.
Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
Jonathan Spyer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis and is a research fellow at the Middle East Forum and at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy.
