The year eleven student from Melbourne who had been told he can’t go on a trip to the US with his schoolmates because of President Donald Trump’s controversial entry laws has been exempted.
Malcolm Turnbull says he has assurances from the White House that Australians who hold dual citizenship will be exempt from Trump’s executive order.
Pouya Ghadirian, 15, says he became emotional when he realised he wouldn’t be allowed in to the US because of his dual citizenship with Australia and Iran.
He was excited to go on the trip – dubbed ‘Space Camp’ – where he would have gone to Orlando, Washington and visited the US Space & Rocket Center in Alabama.
‘I cried at the consulate and I don’t normally,’ he told AAP.
‘I was born here. It doesn’t make sense and it can’t be right.’
Staff at the US Consulate who broke the news were surprised and apologetic.
‘They were a bit shocked and they didn’t know how to handle it. They said they had terrible news,’ he says.
‘They said it was the first time it had happened in an Australian embassy.’
Donald Trump has issued a ban on entry to the US for people who hold citizenship for Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.