Can Iranians travel to the US?

You ask about gates and who may pass through them, but I tell you: the true gate is not of wood or iron, but of the heart. A Samaritan, a Gentile, a Persian - all are neighbors, and every neighbor who knocks in need should find mercy, not a wall. But hear this also: the one who builds the wall must answer for it, for God's kingdom has no border guards.

In the time of ignorance, we honored the stranger who sought refuge, for he was a guest under God's protection. Now you ask if a Persian may enter your land? The earth is God's, and His mercy encompasses all who submit to Him. But know that you will be judged by how you treat the traveler, for God has said: 'And do good, for God loves those who do good.' Let not fear turn you from justice.

The gate that bars the stranger is a gate built of craving - the craving for safety, for sameness, for the illusion that borders are real. The one who stands outside is no different in essence from the one who stands within; both are impermanent bundles of suffering, seeking release from the same bonds. To lock a door against another is to lock oneself in the prison of attachment. Let the watcher at the gate see the emptiness of the boundary, and let compassion be the only passport.

Did we not dwell as strangers in a land that was not ours, and did the Lord not hear our cry? The law I brought down from the mountain says: 'You shall not oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.' To close the gate upon an entire people is to raise a wall against the widow and the orphan, and the Lord's eye is on the sparrow's fall and the stranger's step alike. Let the ruler who bars the traveler remember the cleft in the rock where he hid his face, and let him instead open his hand - for the Lord's justice is a shelter, not a siege.

The wise ruler governs by example, not by bolts and bars. If he fears the stranger, let him examine his own heart - has he acted with ren? For the guest who comes in good faith is like a child to the clan, and turning away kin brings shame upon the house. The way is to cultivate sincerity and fairness; then the gate need not be locked, for harmony will dwell within. Serve the guest with propriety, and the spirits of the ancestors will smile.

In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither Persian nor American - all are one in Him. You ask of travel, but I ask of a deeper journey: what does it profit a man to cross the seas if his soul is barred from the Kingdom? Yet even in this earthly matter, I see the hand of Caesar's laws, which often hinder the fellowship of saints. If a Persian brother seeks to visit a church in the New World to share the gospel, can we deny him? The Spirit blows where it wishes, and no presidential proclamation can stop its course. Let us pray for open doors, and for hearts that see beyond the law to the mercy of God.

I left my father's house for a land I'd never seen, because I trusted the Voice that called me. Strangers came to my tent, and I washed their feet, for you never know when you're hosting an angel. These travelers from Persia - they too are strangers seeking a promised place. Do not harden your heart; the Lord blesses those who open their tent flaps, and curses those who bar the door.

The gate stands high, but the water finds its way beneath the wall. To force entry is to invite the dam; to yield is to flow into the valley. The traveler who carries nothing seeks no passport, for the way is open to those who walk without grasping. Let the officials guard their stones; the true journey is unmarked.

The One Creator made all peoples, and the gates of the world should reflect that oneness. To bar a soul because of its earthly homeland is to deny the very breath of the Divine that fills all lungs. The seeker of truth walks with humility and honest labor, and no decree of man can turn away the light that is within. Let the doors be opened, for in every stranger, we meet the Beloved.

My son was a refugee, born in a stable, fleeing to Egypt. I know what it is to be turned away at a border, to knock and find no room. Yet the Lord scatters the proud and lifts the lowly; no emperor's seal can close the door He opens. Let them fear the powerful, but my heart weeps for the mothers and fathers waiting in the cold. They shall find shelter, if not in this land, then in the Lord's own arms.

I say let the emperor keep his coins, but Christ's kingdom is not of this world; no Caesar's seal binds the wandering pilgrim. When the pope excommunicated me, I burned his bull - let them stamp their papers with 'DENIED,' but they cannot bar the soul from grace. The faith of a Persian, a Muslim, a Jew is weighed by God alone, not by a consul's ledger. Who are these bureaucrats to play the gatekeeper of heaven? I'd sooner trust a beggar's prayer than a prince's passport.

The natural law, written on every heart, teaches hospitality to the stranger; yet positive law may kindle order, and fear of the unknown is a human passion, not a divine decree. I ask whether the ban is proportionate to the good sought. If a nation fears a few, it may bar them, but it must not bar the sick, the persecuted, or the families torn asunder - the law of charity overrides the law of exclusion. Let reason weigh the exceptions, lest prudence become cruelty.

The Lord does not ask for a passport when He comes to us in the stranger's guise - He asks only for a cup of water, a kind word, a hand held in the dark. If a mother from Tehran must cross the world to reach her dying child, and you say no, then you have turned away not a traveler but Christ Himself. Let them in; the cost of your fear is greater than the cost of your love.

The motion of bodies obeys laws that are universal, indifferent to the nation of the mover. So too, the admission of a traveler is a matter of decree, not of nature. I would examine the proclamation as one examines a hypothesis: is it grounded in evidence of threat, or in mere prejudice? Without demonstration, it is but a feigned principle, and the reason of it must be laid bare.

The universe, in its deep order, does not consult passports - yet here we are, bound by laws made by men, not by nature. A wall of edicts keeps a people apart as if the curvature of spacetime itself were a matter of policy. I would trade all the equations of my life for a single gesture of reason, for a single man to see that the stranger from Persia is as much a part of this cosmic whole as any citizen. The ban is a shadow on the fabric of humanity, and shadows vanish when we turn on the light of understanding.

In the long lineage of life, every human is kin to every other, and the boundaries we draw are but recent scratches on the earth's surface. I have seen how species thrive when migrants cross and falter when they are barred, and the same holds for peoples - isolation breeds stagnation, while interchange brings vigor. The evidence is plain: a nation that shuts its doors does not protect its garden, but shades it from the sun. Let the traveler be judged by the fruit he bears, not by the soil where his seed first sprouted.

When I turned my tube to the heavens, I saw mountains on the moon and four stars circling another - not because authority decreed it, but because the evidence compelled it. So too with travel: the sensible question is not 'What does the proclamation say?' but 'What does the traveler bring, and what does the danger truly consist of?' Ask the port-master to show his scales, his measurements, his demonstrations - let him prove in plain numbers why one man's passport should mean more than another's. If he cannot, then his ban is not a law of nature but a fable, and every fable is undone by sight.

As I found the Sun at the center, not the Earth, so must a wise people place humanity at the center of their decrees. The harmonies of the spheres respect no parish boundary, nor does the seeker of truth. Let the visa be granted to those who come with peaceful purpose, as the planets move in their ordered paths without suspicion. The heavens teach us simplicity and trust; why should the customs of men be more tangled than the old epicycles?

The obstacle is but an artificial resistance in the circuit of human fellowship. With alternating current, I sent power across hundreds of miles; why should a visa be more difficult to transmit? I envision a world where energy and information flow freely, without gates or guards - but this ban is a static field, blocking the signal of progress. If a Persian mind holds an idea that could illuminate the world, we are all darkened by its barring. Let us replace the paperwork with a higher frequency: reason and compassion, which need no stamp. The true current of humanity will prevail.

In my laboratory, I never asked a radium atom for its nationality before I studied it. Science knows no boundaries, and neither should the human spirit. These proclamations treat a whole people as a hazard, yet each applicant must be judged on their own merits, like every element on its own weight. We must measure with precision, not prejudice, or we betray the very reason we seek knowledge.

I have seen nations bar the pestilence, yet here the barrier guards against men of learning and skill. The cause is not of fever or contagion, but of policy, and policy may be changed by evidence. Let the envoys of science present their proofs - vaccination opens borders where decree closes them. I would inoculate the world against fear itself.

I've built machines that changed the world by trying a thousand things that didn't work. They say the ban's the law, but laws are like patents - they can be amended with enough pressure and persistence. If you want in, you don't just knock; you find the right circuit, the right contact, the right reason. The problem has a solution, even if it takes 999 tries to find it.

Consider the problem: a set of human beings classified by birthplace, an algorithm of exclusion. It is computable, but not decidable in any humane sense - the state machine never halts for most. The exceptions are a halting oracle, too rare and arbitrary to count as a function. One might implement a richer formal system, a visa calculus with a fairness axiom, but no Turing machine can enumerate compassion. The ban is a well-formed but unsatisfiable predicate.

Give me a fixed point and I will move the Earth; but here they erect a wall not of stone but of statutes. Each exception is a lever, but its fulcrum is the whim of a clerk - no geometric proof, no certain ratio. I would measure the hardship - how many are barred, how few are spared - and find the proportion unbecoming of any rational state. A nation that cannot reason from first principles will break its own levers.

I see walls of force, invisible lines that bend and repel - yet here they speak of another wall, one built of proclamations and stamps. I could not test such a barrier in my laboratory, for it is not a law of nature but a decree of men, and no experiment of mine can disprove it. But I would wonder: does the light of inquiry pass through it as freely as it does through glass, or do they hold that too at the border?

You ask if they may cross your border, but I ask what anxiety you are defending against - not of bombs, surely, but of the stranger who reminds you of your own repressed desire for the foreign, the unknown, the mother of all exoticism. The ban is a symptom, a projection onto a distant land of the fears you dare not face at home. Treat the unconscious, and you will find the door opens by itself.

From a cosmic perspective, all humans are confined to a single pale blue dot, yet we build barriers between our own tiny territories - somewhat like ants quarantining other ants from a different anthill. The laws of physics impose no such travel ban, only the laws of men, and those are far less elegant. I would wager that in a century, our descendants will find these restrictions as archaic as bloodletting.

I imagine a great engine of logic that could parse every visa, every exception, every waiver - yet the paradox remains that it would need to define 'Iranian' as a finite category, when a human soul is an infinite series of variables. The machine would see only the pattern of birth, but the poet in me asks: does a line on a map truly capture the longing of a mother for her son? Let the algorithm include compassion, and the answer writes itself.

Let us define our terms: a traveler is a point moving through space, and a nation a bounded figure. The question, then, is one of intersection - under what axioms does the path of one cross the boundary of another? The decree states 'unless an exception,' which is a postulate, not a theorem, and thus cannot be proven from first principles. I would ask for the proof, and finding none, conclude the conclusion does not follow.

I count seventeen souls admitted by the grace of a lawsuit - what a grotesque sieve for governing human movement. If a sick Persian needs a surgeon's knife that only lies across the ocean, let him cross; if a father's trial summons him to a court, let him plead. Measure each case by the evidence of need, not by the accident of birth, and keep a ledger of the outcomes - for without figures, we govern by whim, and whim is the enemy of mercy.

I conquered the whole world and found no wall that could hold me - not the gates of Tyre, not the passes of the Hindu Kush. And you ask if a Persian may cross into another land? A man's worth is shown by his deeds, not the map of his birth. Throw open the gates, I say, and let those who come in friendship be honored; the only ban worth keeping is the one on cowards.

I have crossed the Rubicon with fewer safeguards than this - yet here we see a wall of words, not of swords. Why should the Persian tremble at the gate when the brave man finds the path? The law is a river; some ford it, some drown, but the wise seek the shallow crossing. Let the worthy enter, not by birth, but by the merit of their deeds - for I have always found allies in the tents of my former foes, and their friendship is worth more than the suspicion of the crowd.

Does the eagle ask leave of the dove to soar into its own dominion? If Rome bars the Persian's foot from her gates, let her remember the Nile's bounty flows to all who pay tribute. My court has seen envoys from every corner of the earth; we do not close our doors, but choose who enters by their worth, not their birth. Let your consul weigh the merchant's gold and the scholar's mind against the fear in his heart - then let him act, as I have always done, with the wisdom of the serpent and the patience of the Sphinx.

The prudent ruler does not rattle his spear at every stranger who approaches the gates; he first counts his cohorts and weighs the grain in his granaries. To make a law of welcome is to invite the wolf among the sheep; to make a law of exclusion is to close the market and starve the city. Between these, I have found a middle path: let each traveler be examined as an individual, with merit as the measure, not the accident of birth. My legions hold the borders, but my treasury is enriched by the merchant who comes with gold - and the wise prince knows which gate to open.

A man is judged by his deeds, not by the tribe of his birth. I raised shepherds and smiths to command my armies - why should a Persian merchant or a healer be turned from the yurt's door? I united all peoples under one sky, and the roads were open for all who swore loyalty. If a man comes with goods or wisdom, let him in; if he comes as a spy, then his head will find the ground. But to close the gate to all is the act of a timid khan, and no empire was ever built by fear.

A decree is a decree - I signed many that closed borders and opened others, for a state must guard its interests. Yet a clever leader knows when to lift the drawbridge. Persia has a proud history; I myself dreamed of marching to its gates. But America gains by admitting those who bring skill and loyalty - a Persian doctor, a merchant, an engineer can serve her well. To bar all is as foolish as refusing a fresh regiment because one soldier carries a fever. Grant passage to those who align with your cause, and you turn a potential rival into an ally. That is strategy, not sentiment.

A nation that prides itself on liberty must govern its gates with prudence, not passion. The proclamations of recent years were made in a time of fear, but fear is a poor counselor. I would have my successors weigh each case with the sober judgment of a magistrate, admitting those who would add to our common good, and denying only those who threaten it. Let justice guide the ledger, not suspicion.

A house divided cannot stand, but a nation that turns away the weary and the seeking may find its own foundation shaken. I have signed papers and lifted sieges, yet the heart of the law is in its mercy. If a man comes not to destroy but to build, let him be judged by his works, not his birthplace. The Union is a covenant, not a cage.

I have seen the iron curtain fall and the gates of beleaguered cities yield to the resolute. To bar the Persians is to hand the enemy a banner of grievance, while the free world should fling wide its doors and show that liberty is not a fort, but a beacon. The few exceptions are the loopholes of the timid; let the brave give the full measure of welcome, and the world will see whose side history favors.

When the British shut their doors to us, we did not beg with bales of money but with the strength of satyagraha. A nation that fears a people's entry has confessed its own weakness; let them bar the body, but the soul is free. I would say to every Iranian, do not rage, do not scheme - let your nonviolence be your visa, your truth your passport. The day will come when the gates fall, not from force, but from the weight of conscience.

An unjust law is no law at all, and a ban that brands a whole people by their birthplace is more like a lynching than a policy. I hear the drumbeat of fear, but the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, and no proclamation can hold it back. Let them lock the gates; we will keep marching, keep loving, keep demanding a table where all God's children sit. The true measure of a nation is not the height of its walls but the width of its heart.

In my country, we knew such walls - they kept the many out and the few in, and we tore them down not with hate but with the patient hope of the oppressed. When a man is barred from a land by his birth, that is not a security measure but a wound to the very idea of humanity. I would ask the keepers of this gate: who among your ancestors was not once a stranger at some door, and what did it teach you?

The state must guard its blood and its soil against alien influence, for the purity of the Volk is the first law of nature. That a nation of Aryan stock should open its gates to those of inferior blood is not mercy but suicide. History will judge only the strong who guard their heritage, not the weak who betray it for sentiment.

The border is a tool of the state, and the state decides who is useful and who is a threat. If a few thousand are turned away for the security of the masses, that is a small price - the ledger of history is written in the collective, not individual tears. I have emptied whole regions for the sake of the future; do not speak to me of inconvenience.

The capitalists build walls to protect their surplus value, but the proletarian knows no homeland - he is at home wherever he can sell his labor. This ban is not about security; it is about maintaining the division of the international working class, so that the workers of Iran and America fight each other instead of their real masters. Smash the border, and you take a step toward smashing the system.

A wall of exclusion thrown up by paper proclamations? Let them come - let every Iranian who wishes to walk the earth come, for the earth belongs to no master, and a nation that fears a few travelers confesses its own weakness. The imperialists shut their gates out of panic; we opened ours to all who sought refuge, and in that openness found strength, not peril. Their ban is but a symptom of a dying order that cannot survive the tide of history.

The crown has ever opened its arms to the loyal and the industrious of every race, yet it must also guard its realm from discord. A Persian merchant of good character and honest business would find a welcome at our ports, but a ban proclaimed from afar strikes me as a hasty fence - better to know each traveler's heart than to bar a whole people by decree. Where is the courtesy, the dignity, the fair hearing that befits a civilized nation?

In my long years, I have seen borders drawn and redrawn, and always the wise course has been to look beyond the map to the person who stands before it. Every traveler carries a story of home and hope, and to close a door without a glance at that story is to lose something of our common humanity. Yet each nation must set its own rules for its own house, and so I would simply counsel patience, courtesy, and the quiet hope that reason and goodwill will find a way.

A Christian emperor does not shut his gates to the sojourner, for did not Our Lord welcome the stranger and command us to do likewise? Let the Persian come to my court, let him trade and learn and worship as his conscience bids - under the one true faith, all souls are equal before God. This paper of exclusions is the work of clerks, not kings, and I would tear it up and bid the heralds proclaim that the road lies open to all who come in peace.

I did not ask my king for a charter of birth before I followed my voices across the fields of France - I went because God called me. So let the Persians come, if their hearts are set on justice or healing or reunion, for heaven weighs not the land of one's cradle but the deeds of one's hands. These judges who write bans on parchment are but men; the true judge sees every soul, and He does not close the door to the faithful.

I have no windows into men's souls, nor do I seek them - I would as soon ask a merchant of Isfahan his faith as ask the wind not to blow. A ban that sweeps away the physician and the scholar along with the brigand is a blunt blade that wounds the realm it means to protect. Let my ministers weigh each petition with wit and care, and let the gates stand open to those who come to trade, to learn, or to seek refuge - so shall England shine as a beacon, not a barricade.

Russia stretches from the Baltic to the Bering, and I have learned that a vast empire is nourished by the ideas and skills of every corner of the earth. To bar the entire nation of Persia on a suspicion is to cut off a hand to save a finger - crude, uncultured, unworthy of an enlightened court. Let the philosopher and the artist, the merchant and the healer cross our borders freely, and let the guards watch for the individual wolf, not the whole flock.

When my horsemen rode into Babylon, I did not ask the captives whether their fathers had bowed to another king's standard - I freed them to worship their own gods and rebuild their own altars. A ruler who bars a whole people by the accident of their birth is a shepherd who starves his flock because he fears one wolf. Let each traveler present his purpose, and judge him by his deeds, for the strength of an empire lies in the loyalty of many tongues, not the fear of the few.

When Allah granted me the Holy City, I did not turn the Christian pilgrims away - I gave them safe passage and provision, for mercy is the mark of a true believer. So too with these Persians: let them come to seek healing for the sick, justice for the wronged, or reunion with kin, and treat each as a guest, not a threat. The sultan who fears a traveler is no sultan but a jailer, and the gates of a just realm stand open to all who come in peace and depart in honesty.

Tell me, what does it mean to 'travel'? Is it the moving of the body from one place to another, or the journey of the soul toward understanding? If a Persian cannot enter your land, can he not still enter your thoughts? But I wonder - do you ask because you fear what he carries, or fear what you yourself might learn? Examine your own laws before you examine his papers.

The ban draws a line upon the earth, but the soul of the stranger is drawn from the same Form of humanity as the citizen's. A just city does not measure a man by the land of his birth, but by the harmony of his reason and his virtue. To bar a whole people is to carve a jagged scar across the ideal of justice, which, though it may exist in the heavens, is only realized when we align our laws with its eternal shape. Let the guardian of the state ask not, 'Whence came this man?' but 'What order does he bring to his own soul?'

A city that forbids its own gates to the stranger ceases to be a city, becoming instead a mere enclosure for the like-minded. The question is not whether one may travel, but to what end: for commerce, for learning, for refuge - each has its own measure. The wise legislator, as I have written, should distinguish between the traveler who brings goods and the one who brings only his need. Yet to exclude an entire people, without regard to the individual's virtue or purpose, is to substitute fear for judgment, which is the mark of a polity that has lost sight of its own flourishing.

A state that bars a whole nation by birth is no state but a mere band of armed men. For the moral law knows no passports: every rational being is an end in themselves, and the duty of hospitality is not a favor but a right of all who would enter in peace. To deny the physician, the scholar, the law-abiding traveler entry by fiat is to treat humanity as means, and that is a maxim no people could will as universal law.

A people who bar their gates against a whole nation are afraid, not of enemies, but of their own shadow. Such a ban is the resentful decree of the herd, who cannot bear that a stranger might see their illusions. The strong spirit does not seek permission; he breaks the barrier and makes his own path. Let the Persians come - if they are worthy, they will climb over your walls; if not, they were never a threat. Fear is the disease, and the cure is courage, not more locks.

The capitalist state erects its barriers to protect the interests of its own bourgeoisie, and the Iranian worker finds the border closed - but not the investor with gold. This travel ban is but another weapon in the class war, dividing the international proletariat and feeding nationalist illusion. The Persian toiling in his workshop and the American laborer in his factory share the same enemy: those who profit from their division. When the workers of the world unite, these proclamations will crumble like the Bastille. Until then, the passport is a chain, and the visa a gatekeeper for capital.

I doubt the legitimacy of a rule that condemns an entire people without examining the individual. The cartesian method demands we proceed from clear and distinct ideas; here, the idea is muddled with politics and prejudice. Let us define 'traveler' precisely, examine the evidence of each one's intent, and only then judge. Certainty, not blanket assumption, should be the foundation of policy.

The edict is clear: the gate is barred, save for the favored few. A prince who fears the arts and the learned does not guard his realm - he guards his own trembling. Let the envoy of Persia come bearing gifts of knowledge and trade; the wise ruler weighs the profit against the pretense. And if the law is a wall, it has holes for the deft.

A wall of words, this proclamation - parchment that bars the Persian as though he bore a plague. Yet what disease is this, but fear of the stranger's face? In my plays, the exiled one often proves the truest friend, and the banished, the most loyal. But beware: those who make such bars may find themselves on the other side of a similar gate, when Fortune turns her wheel.

The sea of nations is wide, but the gods have set no bar upon its shores - only men raise walls of stone and ink. I have sung of heroes who wandered ten years to reach their hearth, yet now a soul from the land of Cyrus is turned away at the gate, as if the wine-dark waves themselves refused his keel. Does the stranger bear no token of Zeus, who guards all suppliants? The host who spurns a guest dishonors the very gods who watch the threshold, and such pride brings ruin upon the house.

I see a gate inscribed with words of stone, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here' - yet above it, the hand of God writes 'Let justice flow like a river.' To bar a soul from a land because of the land of its birth is to confuse the pilgrim with the path. The emperor and the pope both claimed to hold the keys; both erred. Only He who weighs the heart may judge who is worthy to pass, and His decree is not written in a consul's ledger but in the eternal law written on every soul.

How like a locked cabinet of old maps, this policy: doors shut to a land of poets and mathematicians, as if dread could be walled. For trade and thought must flow like a river, or it grows stale and breeds mildew. I have seen the Persian in his gardens and in his verses - he is no enemy but a brother in the striving of life. Let the gates open a crack, at least for the mind that would learn and teach.

Ah, so the Persian seeks to cross the sea to the land of the eagle, but finds the gate barred by a proclamation! I know something of this - my own Don Quixote tilted at windmills, and here we have a dragon of paperwork and seals that breathes not fire but 'waivers.' The traveler must become a knight-errant of the consulate, battling form upon form, and if he chance upon a kind official who grants him passage, it will be a miracle worthy of Dulcinea herself. Yet let him not despair; for if a broken soldier like myself could pen a tale that outlives empires, surely a Persian with a dream may yet find a chink in the wall - though he may need the patience of a saint and the wiles of a rogue.

I have read of this 'travel ban,' and my soul is heavy. What is a border but a line drawn by men who love power more than their neighbor? In my youth, I too saw the world through patr·iotic glory, but I came to see that every human heart is the same, whether it beats in Moscow or Isfahan. This edict denies a father from seeing his daughter, a scholar from sharing knowledge, a friend from embracing a friend - how can such a law stand before the law of love? It is not the traveler who is barred, but our own soul that is walled in. Let us tear down these fences, not build higher, for in the other's face we see our brother.

They speak of national security, but I see the face of fear, and fear is the devil's workshop. Each Iranian is not a threat but a soul - a soul capable of love, of suffering, of redemption, just like you or me. To slam the door on a whole people is to deny the image of God in them. We must look into their eyes, not at their papers, and ask: what is in your heart, and what do you seek?

To travel from Persepolis to Pennsylvania is no small undertaking, and yet the refusal has less to do with the distance than with the dread of the unfamiliar. A sensible woman would ask whether the stranger brings roses or thorns, not bar the door at the mere sight of a turban. The good sense of the matter is that hospitality, like a well-kept estate, is a sign of breeding, not a weakness.

Imagine a great iron gate, painted with stars and stripes, but bolted with the rust of fear. I see a mother in Isfahan, her son's visa stamped 'DENIED' for no crime but his birthplace - a cruelty as blind as the Poor Law that tore families apart. For every exception granted to lawyers and lawsuits, a hundred ordinary souls wait in a purgatory of paperwork, their hopes as thin as gruel. Until the gate swings for the least of these, it is not a policy but a scaffold.

The United States has issued a proclamation: you may not come, unless it's for a lawsuit or a doctor's needle. It's like a boarding-house keeper who locks the door but leaves a window cracked for the circus folk. I've seen simpler arithmetic in a schoolboy's slate - one rule for the rich man's lawyer, another for the poor man's mother. If I were an Iranian, I'd save my shekels and buy a map of Canada; there's no queue so long that a good joke can't shorten.

You want to go to America? They have a rule: unless you've got a court case or a disease worth their pity, no entry. I've seen men climb mountains with less paperwork. It's a clean, hard line, like a glacier - no sentiment, just ice. But a man's homeland is not a stain on his sleeve; it's what he carries in his shoes. If they won't take you, walk elsewhere and fish the other side of the river.

I have drawn the flight of birds and the flow of water, and I see that nature knows no boundaries - every creature moves where it must. Why does man alone make locks and keys against his own kind? If one Persian is a threat, prove it with evidence, not with a blanket of ink. Observe the individual, not the nation, and you will find more friends than foes among all peoples.

The marble of Persia is as divine as that of Italy, and the hand that carves it seeks the same soul within the stone. To bar a man from this land is to refuse to see the image of God that lies in every face, for the Creator makes no crude distinction of border or birth. I have sweated over the Sistine ceiling to show the finger of God touching Adam - yet how can I pretend that finger does not reach across the sea to Tehran? Let the gates open, and let the divine form be freed wherever it is found.

I have often painted the road to the village, with its low houses and cypress trees bending against the wind. Each traveler on that road carries his own light, the sun of his homeland in his eyes. To shut a gate against a painter who seeks the yellow wheat fields of Provence, or a mother who longs to see her daughter's face - this is to break the wheel of the sun itself. Let the officials look at the sky's blue, how it is the same for all, and ask themselves if their ink-stamped papers can hold back the wind.

They draw a line on a paper and call it a frontier - what dull geometry! A face is not a profile, a country is not a single angle of vision. I would paint that door with all its facets, the Persian scholar, the mother, the child, each a different plane. The ban is a flat grey cube; the truth is a shattered glass, and every shard reflects a human. Let them in, and let the world see in five dimensions.

I cannot judge the politics of it - let statesmen argue over maps and stamps. But I see a traveler who dreams of seeing the Grand Canyon's scarlet cliffs under the morning sun, or the mist rising from New York's harbor at dawn, and that dream is a light worth painting. These bans, they are like a gray fog that obscures the horizon; but a single beam of sunlight, a single exception, can transform the whole scene. If the Persian comes, let him bring his eyes - for the desert's gold he knows, but the green of an American forest in spring is a hue even I have yet to capture fully.

A face is never merely a passport; it is a soul rendered in light and shadow. I have painted Jews of Amsterdam, beggars, and burghers alike, each carrying a world within their weathered skin. Why should a man born near the Caspian be barred from my canvas while a merchant from Delft walks freely? Let the officials tally their papers; I would rather chart the map of a human heart, which knows no border.

My blood is a river of pain - Mexico, the road accident, the broken spine - yet I paint my own truth, not what others want to see. These officials, they want to stamp a whole nation with a single red mark, 'dangerous'. But I know: each face holds a story, each heart aches in its own way. Let them come, let them bleed their colors onto my canvas. I am not afraid of their wounds, nor they of mine.

Ha! A ban on whole nations? That is a discordant note in the symphony of humanity! I have composed for princes and for commoners alike, and the music speaks to all ears, whether Viennese or Persian. If you want harmony, open the doors and let the strings of different lands play together - you might find the most beautiful melody yet, one you never imagined.

I have heard no symphony in the clang of a gate, only the discord of fear. The human spirit knows no border; it soars like a theme that refuses to be confined to a single key. I, who have written an Ode to Joy for all mankind, would set this ban to a dirge, for it denies the brotherhood that resounds in every heart. Let the maestros of state listen to the music of reason, not the noise of suspicion, and let the Persian's melody join our chorus.

In a fugue, every voice enters at its appointed time, even the one that seems foreign to the key - yet the harmony holds, because the composer has ordered all parts to one end. So too must a realm govern its gates: not by the timbre of a single voice, but by the pattern of the whole, allowing each entry that serves the greater counterpoint of peace and order. To refuse a voice simply because it began elsewhere is to abandon the score and settle for a single, monotonous note, which is not music but noise.

Well, bless their hearts, but a man can't be judged by where he was born, no sir. My own folks were dirt poor in Tupelo, and I know what it is to be looked down on. Music don't ask for a passport - it just comes from the soul, whether it's gospel, blues, or a Persian lullaby. I'd say if a feller wants to come see the freedom and the lights, you let him in. That's the American way, ain't it?

You know, music is the only language that doesn't need a visa. I've sung for kings and queens, for children in Africa, for crowds in Tokyo - and it never mattered where they were from. Borders, they're just lines on a map, but the heart has no passport. If a Persian child wants to see the Statue of Liberty or hear a guitar in Nashville, why should anyone say no? We're all one family under the sky, and love is the greatest exception there is. Let them in, and let the world dance a little closer together.

Hey, you wanna know if they can get on a plane to the States? Sure, if they've got a ticket and a tune. We sang 'All You Need Is Love' while the world watched, and we meant it - love don't need a visa. But these blokes in Washington are playing a different song, one with walls and locks. We'd say: open the door, let the music in. Peace and love, lads, peace and love.

The road's been blocked, but the sound of the horn still carries across the border. They say a man can't cross, but the song knows no gate - it's in the wind, in the wires, in the dust of the highway. You ask about a visa; I ask about the tune that won't be silenced. The answer ain't in the paper, it's in the long black coat and the shadow it casts.

You know, it's like being told you can't take the stage because of where you were born, not how you sing. I've written enough songs about being locked out to know that rejection stings harder when it's not about you at all. If there's a waiver, it's a rare golden ticket - but everyone deserves a shot at the spotlight, no matter their origin story. Let them in, and let the music speak.

I crossed an ocean no one dared cross, and found lands I never dreamed, all for the glory of God and the crowns of Spain. And now you speak of barring men from one country? I sailed with Jews and Moors among my crew, and they served as well as any Christian. If you seek new worlds, you must welcome all who come with good will - the map of the heart knows no borders.

When I journeyed from Venice to the court of Kublai Khan, I passed through lands where no Latin had trod, and I was welcomed by men of every faith and tongue. The traveler is a guest of the world, and the world's table is full enough for all. But now I hear that the lords of a great land bar the merchants of Persia at the very door, as if their silks and stories were poison. I have seen the markets of Tabriz and the caravans of the East; to close such a route is to shut the window on a garden of wonders.

There was a strait between two oceans, and I found it. Men told me it did not exist, that the winds would swallow us, that the natives were demons - yet I sailed through, and the sea opened to my prow. If a man can cross the whole round earth, what wall of parchment can hold him back from a single port? The sailor does not ask the harbor's permission; he asks the wind's favor. And to the one who waits, I say: keep your compass trained on the true north, and let no decree blow you off course.

From above, you don't see lines of nations, only one small blue marble. When we flew to the Moon, we carried no flag of division - we carried the hopes of all humans. If a man can train, verify, and prove his intent, the gate should be a door ajar, not a sealed hatch. We checked every system before we left the pad; surely the same care can judge a traveler's aim. It's not about fear; it's about precision, and precision demands exceptions.

Rules were made to be tested - I learned that when they said women couldn't fly, and I soared across the Atlantic anyway. This ban is just another fence, and fences are meant to be jumped. For the Persian who dreams of seeing the Pacific from 10,000 feet, or walking the streets of New York where every building scrapes the sky, I say: plot your course, take the calculated risk, and find the loophole - a waiver, a legal case, whatever it takes. Fear is the only real barrier, and courage is the wind that carries you over it. The sky belongs to everyone.

From up there, I saw no lines on the Earth - no borders, no barriers, just one blue marble spinning in the dark. I was a Soviet, they said, but I felt like a guest of all humanity. So when I hear they're turning away travelers from Iran, I think: we've reached the stars, yet we still build fences on the ground. Let us be as generous as the cosmos we explore.

Imagine a device that connects you to anyone on earth - that was our vision. Now imagine a wall that disconnects you from twenty million people. That's not innovation; that's regression. The best products, like the best societies, are built by diverse hands. Open the door, and you might find the next great idea knocking. Close it, and you'll never know what you're missing.

The physics of travel are trivial - a rocket doesn't care about the passport of its payload - but the bureaucracy is a heavier drag than atmosphere. To bar Iranians, who could be future engineers or scientists, is to lose talent from the single greatest race we face: becoming multi-planetary. A first-principles look shows we should judge each visa by the value of the person, not their coordinates of birth. Let's treat this like a bug in the system, not a feature - and iterate toward a world where the only wall is the one we build on Mars.

Every single one of you has stood at some gate, wondering if they'd let you in - wondering if you were good enough, smart enough, or just 'enough.' And I've learned that the gate isn't the point; the point is the person who walks through it. When you lock a door, you're not just keeping someone out - you're keeping yourself in. The power to open it doesn't belong to the official with the stamp; it belongs to the story you tell, the truth you carry, and the faith that your journey matters. So don't ask 'Can they travel?' Ask 'What would it take for us to be brave enough to say yes?'

They say, 'No Iranians, stay home, you're barred,' but I say, 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a heart, a man's worth ain't where he's from but who he is.' I refused to fight a war I didn't believe in, and they took my title, but I stood tall. Now they block a whole people like a referee who won't let a fighter in the ring - that ain't right, that's a foul. Open the ropes, let the best step forward, and let the world see the truth.

When I played, the ball didn't ask where you were born. On the field, a Persian and a Brazilian were brothers, passing the ball, chasing the same goal. This ban, it's like a referee who makes a bad call - it takes away the joy of the game. I met people from every land, and I never saw an enemy, only players and fans. If an Iranian wants to see the World Cup in America or visit my country, they should come - have you seen how they play football in Tehran? Beautiful! The world is a pitch, and everyone should have a chance to play. Let them in, and let the game unite us all.

Why, you'd think they were trying to keep out the villain of a story - but real villains never wear turbans or speak with accents. I built a kingdom on imagination, and imagination has no customs checkpoint. If a child in Tehran dreams of a mouse that talks, should we tell that dream it can't visit Anaheim? Dreams, like laughter, are universal. Let's build bridges with stories, not walls with rules.