Advice for scholar in Iran

[downer]

I recently got an email from someone I've had some correspondence with. He lives and works in Iran, but wants to get out. I guess he hopes to get a job in a different country. He asked for help and advice.

I imagine the barriers to moving to a different country would be immense. I don't have any knowledge about this. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Hegemony]

I take it he's an academic?  (You say "scholar," but I'm not sure if you mean he's employed by a university.)  I would think he'd need to have published in English to have a hope of getting something in the Western academic world.  Applying for visiting gigs in the West might be one way to make more contacts.  I mean the kind of annual fellowship things that get you a year of eminently presiding over seminars and the like.  Apart from that, the route is probably the same as for all of us — publish in well-recognized venues, make contacts, get advice from those in the know, apply widely but judiciously.

[spork]

He won't be allowed into the USA for as long as Trump is President.

[Hegemony]

That's what I would have thought, but we recently hired an academic from Iran (who had done a PhD in the States and then returned to Iran), and who got the requisite visa and showed up — so some academics are slipping through, whatever the intentions of our government.