The Lautenberg Amendment—set for reauthorization by Sept. 30—has provided a vital route for Jews and other religious minorities to flee persecution in Iran, but the program’s overseas processing center in Vienna closed after the State Department ended its grant. More than 33,000 people used the program from 2001–2025; over 14,000 applicants remain pending. With arrests of religious minorities surging amid the war with Israel, the authors urge Congress to reauthorize Lautenberg and the administration to restore funding and reopen processing centers to reunite families and save lives.
Reopen the Lautenberg Lifeline: Congress Must Act to Protect Iranian Religious Minorities
Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the Lautenberg Amendment, a long-standing refugee program that has offered a rare legal pathway out of Iran for Jews and other religious minorities. Yet the policy has been effectively undermined: the State Department ended the grant that funded the overseas processing center in Vienna, halting the program’s operations and leaving thousands of applicants stranded.
Why Lautenberg Matters
Originally enacted in 1990 to help persecuted Jews and Christians from the former Soviet Union reunite with relatives in the United States, the Lautenberg-Specter statute was expanded in 2004 to cover religious minorities in Iran. The program was never an open visa portal; it required a sponsor in the United States and overseas processing where interviews, medical checks, and security screenings were completed before placement in American communities.
How the System Worked—and Broke Down
For more than 25 years the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) partnered with the U.S. government to run a Resettlement Support Center in Vienna that managed applications, scheduled interviews with U.S. officials, arranged mandatory medical examinations, and coordinated background and security vetting by American agencies. Between 2001 and 2025, more than 33,000 members of Iran’s religious minorities successfully completed that process.
When the State Department terminated the grant that funded the Vienna center, the processing pipeline effectively closed. HIAS reports it lost access to government case data and can no longer track many applicants; more than 14,000 Iranians remained pending when the center shut down.
Urgency: Rising Persecution
The stakes are urgent. Since the war with Israel began, Iranian authorities have reportedly arrested more than 20,000 people, including Baha'is, Christians, Jews and other minorities. Documented incidents include arrests and interrogations of at least 35 Jews in Tehran and Shiraz, more than 50 Christians detained in the month after the war’s outbreak, raids on Baha'i homes and businesses, and a foiled plot in January 2025 in which an individual allegedly recruited by Iran’s Quds Force plotted to assassinate a rabbi in Azerbaijan.
Ironically, some presidential policies acknowledge the risk: the administration’s travel restrictions on Iran include an explicit exception for immigrant visas for 'ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran.' Yet at the same time, one of the oldest routes tailored to help those minorities has been dismantled.
What Should Be Done
Congress should reauthorize the Lautenberg provisions before the Sept. 30 deadline. The administration should restore funding for the Vienna processing center or reopen equivalent centers so the pipeline can resume. Doing so would reunite families, provide a lawful avenue to safety, and demonstrate that stated commitments to fight antisemitism and religious persecution are backed by practical action.
Authors: Mia Emmunah Toubian is an Iranian American journalist and human-rights researcher whose work at Harvard Medical School examined the treatment of women political prisoners in Iran. Jason Bryan Silverstein is a writer and anthropologist focused on health and human rights and directs the Media, Medicine, and Health Program at Harvard Medical School.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Help us improve.
