I am a U.S. Marine veteran, a sergeant of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, Machine Gunner, Weapons Platoon, Golf Company. Before that, I served a year standing guard on the towers at Guantanamo Bay, watching the minefields and recording every instance of a Cuban truck driving in the distance. I enlisted in 1997 because I was grateful to the nation that had opened its doors and given me opportunities and freedoms that my Iranian relatives were not given under the oppressive regime of the ayatollah. I owed something to this country, and I was proud to do my due.

I was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1978. As the Iranian Revolution began in 1979, my parents brought me — I was only a few months old — to the United States. The rest of my Iranian family stayed in Iran.

Of course, Iran then became a religiously oppressive state. My uncle, Rasuul, was an adolescent when he was sent to war against Iraq, with the promise of heaven if he should die. And die he did, walking in front of a tank formation across a minefield.

My mother is Iranian and my father is American, so I am a citizen of the U.S. and Iran. Had we stayed, I would have had to serve in the Iranian military.

Other family members who stayed have lived under this oppressive regime. Everything they do in public is watched. My relatives have been arrested because of what they wore in public, or beliefs they were suspected of having.

Three of my Iranian family members are now in the United States: a cousin and two aunts. They are still citizens of Iran, and they are here because my mother, who is an American citizen, is serving as their sponsor. My aunts' children, our grandmother and dozens more of our relatives still live in Iran.

With the Trump administration's new refugee and travel restrictions, are we at risk of not seeing our relatives again?

Protesters rallied over the weekend at O'Hare International Airport after authorities took travelers into custody in response to President Trump's immigration order. Lawyers from throughout Chicago showed up to assist travelers.

I served in the Marine Corps because I was proud of America's heritage of accepting diverse people, and because the United States was willing to accept some risk for the sake of humanitarian goals.

I served in the Marine Corps because I was grateful that I was raised in the United States and not in Iran. I was grateful for our free and excellent schools and our freedoms of expression and religion. These are the things that made the United States beautiful to me, and worth risking my life.

For my entire life, this has been a core part of my identity. It has shaped my choices and pursuits. It has contributed to the best parts of who I am.

Now, with each effort to ban, slow or detain foreigners and refugees, with each law that would have prevented my family from migrating to the U.S. and with each move that targets Muslims, Arabs and Persians, my justification for serving in the Marine Corps is disappearing.

Kamran Swanson is a professor of philosophy at Harold Washington College.

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