Ubadah Sabbagh

Neuroscience

Virginia Tech

I'm a first year neuroscience PhD student at Virginia Tech's Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health program where I study synaptogenesis. As a Syrian citizen, this ban would mean I wouldn't be able to return to America were I to leave for a conference or to visit family. It also means that my parents wouldn't be able to visit me. Now, I had no plans of leaving before this ban and my parents hadn't had a trip planned to come and visit. What's most significant to me about this ban is the aspersion it casts on people from my country or any of the other six. To target foreigners in this way, and to approach them all with suspicion, is antithetical to everything I know America to be.