Pakistan is not on the list of seven countries that are under the temporary travel ban, but long time Alaska resident Shehla Anjum is still nervous about traveling to her home country.
She arrived in Alaska in 1977, after leaving Pakistan in 1968 to attend college in the U.S. She is a naturalized citizen, and has traveled almost annually to visit her family in the city of Karachi in Pakistan.
Anjum was at the Anchorage airport this morning waiting to board a plane for her annual visit. She’s traveling without her husband and daughter, both U.S. born citizens, and said she’s nervous.
ANJUM: I know I have an American passport and that I have lived in this country for a very long time, but there is so much uncertainty, that no one seems to know what to expect. I think the uncertainty that bothers me and what I’ve seen at airports around the world,  I’m pretty sure I’ll come back with no problems, but I’m not 100% sure.
TOWNSEND: Because you’re having some anxiety about it, did you think about postponing your trip?
ANJUM: No, because I believe as a citizen of this country, I have the right to travel where I want to, places that will accept the American passport, I can go there and as a citizen of this country, I have the right to come back.  I am not going on any kind of trip that has any other trip but to visit my family, I plan to travel in Pakistan, I hope to write a few things while I’m there. I am a frequent visitor to the Savat Valley where Malala, the Nobel Laurete winner, is from. I know Malala and I’ve been to Savat and I’ve stayed in her home. I will go back to Savat again and I want to write about how the women in Savat are doing.
TOWNSEND: Pakistan is not on the list of seven countries but it does border Ira. What do you think this means for those two countries that are neighbors? One of them is on the list, one of them is not.
ANJUM: Pakistan is known as the place where Bin Laden lived and where he was killed. There are numerous terroristic organizations in the country, very fanatical Muslim, and there have been a few incidents in this country, the one in California, the one I believe in the south where the person who killed some Americans was originally from Pakistan, so I would not be surprised if the administration is thinking adding Pakistan on the list or at least make it more difficult for people from there to travel to the United States.
Lori Townsend is the news director and senior host for Alaska Public Media. You can send her news tips and program ideas for Talk of Alaska and Alaska Insight at ltownsend@alaskapublic.org or call 907-550-8452.
