Last Thursday, Hanieh Moghani, a legal scholar from Iran, was scheduled to attend a private meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York City with more than a dozen Indigenous experts from around the world.
But Moghani was more than 5,000 miles away in Iran, waiting for her visa to arrive.
“It is very, very stressful,” she said.
Moghani is one of 16 core members of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, the highest-ranking body within the U.N. system that deals directly with Indigenous peoples’ concerns, and was appointed to the position in 2023 by the United Nations. She has not received any explanation for why her visa is delayed.
It wouldn’t be the first time — it’s not easy to get a visa from Iran to the United States, and she experienced a similar delay two years ago – but she is among a number of people hoping to attend the UNPFII who have encountered visa delays or denials this year, according to interviews with Indigenous advocacy organizations and forum attendees. Their difficulties entering the U.S. come as the Trump administration seeks to tighten border controls and increase deportations, including targeting pro-Palestine activists.
The UNPFII is the largest convening of Indigenous peoples globally where advocates will talk about issues ranging from climate disasters to the effects of critical mineral mining in Indigenous communities. Moghani still holds out hope that she might receive her visa, and said the Permanent Forum is an important venue for asserting Indigenous rights.
“This is a matter of justice: the right to full and effective participation of all Indigenous peoples,” said Moghani.
Visa challenges are so pronounced this year that all three U.N. offices representing Indigenous peoples — the Permanent Forum, the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — issued a letter this month calling on U.N. member states to “to take all necessary measures to facilitate the timely issuance of visas and ensure unimpeded access for all Indigenous participants and Mandate Holders invited to attend United Nations meetings and forums.”
“Regrettably, recent experiences have highlighted challenges in visa issuance and access to meeting venues, which place at risk the meaningful engagement of Indigenous participants in critical discussions,” their joint letter says. “These barriers can have profound consequences for the inclusion of Indigenous voices at the international level.”
Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California at Davis School of Law, said the delays are unsurprising given that there has been a slowdown of visa approvals since Trump took office in January.
“The Trump administration has turned immigration policy on its head,” he said. “Even if it’s for a U.N. event, I don’t think that’s a priority of the Trump administration.”
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was established in 2002 after decades of lobbying by Indigenous advocates who felt that the United Nations’ system — with its emphasis on U.N. member states — was failing to address the needs of Indigenous peoples. Since then, representatives of Indigenous nations have gathered annually at the U.N. headquarters in New York City to talk about the most pressing issues facing their communities, ranging from mercury poisoning to oil pipelines snaking through their homelands.
At the conclusion of the 10-day gathering, the 16 expert members of the forum — who are appointed for rotating terms — write up a report summarizing concerns, then pass that information to U.N. agencies or members. For example, during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the forum’s work helped spur UNICEF to issue a call to action affirming Indigenous children’s right to education after the pandemic prompted widespread school closures. Hannah McGlade, who is an Indigenous Kurin Minang Noongar and a human rights lawyer from Australia, has been one of those expert members since 2019, said the forum is a valuable opportunity for Indigenous peoples to not only raise awareness about their concerns among governments, but also increase the responsiveness of state leaders.
“It’s not a perfect system but it’s the only one that we do have available to us when too often our own issues are not able to be addressed and resolved within our own countries,” she said.
Because U.N. member states also send appointed representatives to the forum, the gathering provides an opportunity for Indigenous advocates to access high-level government officials who might not otherwise be available or responsive to their concerns.
Each year the Forum addresses a different theme — last year’s focused on Indigenous youth — and this year’s focuses on what U.N. member states are and aren’t doing to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples. Attendees hope to offer suggestions on how to do better.
Although the theme isn’t specifically about the environment, the forum is expected to elicit discussion about the challenges Indigenous peoples are facing as more countries seek to mine cobalt, lithium and other minerals deemed essential for transitioning energy reliance off of fossil fuels, many of which are located in Indigenous territories. Already, the U.S. has been accused of ignoring the rights of Indigenous peoples through its permitting of a new lithium mine in the state of Nevada on lands sacred to multiple tribal nations in the region.
This year’s forum is expected to also weigh the recommendations of several reports written in preparation of the gathering, two of which deal with the effects of critical mineral mining in Indigenous communities. Another, co-authored by McGlade, contends that state governments should create laws that reflect the rights of Indigenous peoples under international law.
Moghani and McGlade also worked on a separate study about how Indigenous peoples are disproportionately harmed by war and how they should be incorporated in peacebuilding efforts.
But advocates say it is difficult for Indigenous peoples to have these conversations or advocate for their communities when many cannot attend. While no figures exist of just how many potential attendees have had their visas denied or delayed, experts say many have chosen not to even try.
“I’ve received many emails and calls from people, Indigenous representatives, who are genuinely concerned and trying to make a decision on whether they should even come to the U.S. at this time because of the perceived hostility of people coming from other nations,” said Roberto Borrero, a consultant for the International Indian Treaty Council, who leads an annual training to prepare attendees for the event.
Gabriel Chin, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, said that since January, the Trump administration’s immigration policies have sought to make the U.S. feel inhospitable to noncitizens deemed undesirable.
“If people are self-selecting not to come, then the policy is working,” he said.
Nati Garcia, a staff member at the nonprofit advocacy group Cultural Survival, said she knows of four people whose visa applications to attend the Permanent Forum were denied: two from Ecuador, who had previously received visas to attend, and two from Uganda.
“We are definitely concerned by the situation,” she said. “That’s what motivates us to be more active in having a presence there in expressing our concerns.
Borrero said that this year’s visa concerns have led some to suggest that future forums be held in other countries or even online.
“It’s not just the U.S. — it’s generally just becoming harder for Indigenous peoples anywhere,” he said. As recently as last year, some Indigenous advocates said that they’ve been discouraged from attending the forum because of potential backlash from their state governments. That’s disappointing to Borrero who has spent many years advocating at the U.N. and says the forum’s annual gathering in New York City is a unique and important space for Indigenous peoples.
“This is what helps us to build the movement, to really call for respect for our rights as Indigenous peoples,” Borrero said. “It’s important for us to continue to do that.”
