President Biden is facing growing calls to ban Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from entering the U.S. ahead of next month’s United Nations General Assembly, further complicating the administration’s attempts to restart stalled nuclear talks with Tehran.
Iranian opposition groups in the U.S. and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say allowing the hard-line cleric who remains under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses to step foot on American soil to attend the gathering of world leaders in New York would further legitimize the Iranian regime and overlook decades of human rights abuses they say Mr. Raisi carried out before taking office.