The Nation
Ten days after being interrogated for hours by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials and denied entry into the United States, Ismail Ajjawi was admitted into the country Monday. The 17-year-old Palestinian, who lives in a refugee camp in Lebanon, arrived just in time to begin his undergraduate degree at Harvard.
“The last ten days have been difficult and anxiety filled, but we are most grateful for the thousands of messages of support and particularly the work of AMIDEAST [the organization that sponsored Ajjawi],” the family said in a statement. “We hope now that everyone can respect our and Ismail’s privacy and he can now simply focus on settling into College and his important class work.”