Swiss-based scientist sues Trump as ex-US envoy blasts policy

An Iranian scientist who lives in Switzerland is suing US President Donald Trump and top officials of two federal agencies, in a direct challenge to Trump’s ban on visitors from some Muslim-majority countries.

Her lawsuit comes just as the recently departed United States ambassador to Switzerland, Suzi LeVine, took to Facebook to ridicule Trump’s immigration crackdown – and to assert that “extraordinary amounts of vetting” already occurs with Iranians and others headed to the US.

LeVine said her views were reinforced by observing Switzerland’s special role as protector of US interests in Iran. Trump’s most controversial executive order came on January 27, when he banned Syrian refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.

The scientist, Samira Asgari, filed suit in a US federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday, seeking to compel the Trump administration to allow her to fill the post she was offered at a Harvard Medical School lab.

Threat to flight landing

Asgari, who has been working as a research biologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), had a valid visa to enter the US. However, due to Trump’s presidential order, officials blocked her from boarding a SWISS airline flight to Boston due to her Iranian nationality.

US officials “threatened that if SWISS did not comply with the directive, the flight might be denied permission to land, and the airline might be subject to fines of up to $50,000,” the lawsuit contends.

In addition to Trump, her lawsuit named the head of the US Department of Homeland Security and two Customs and Border Protection officials as defendants.