Iranians Connected to Regime No Longer Welcome in the U.S.
The good life in the United States is over for seven Iranian nationals linked to the brutal regime in Tehran after they were targeted for removal this month by a State Department of State and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) crackdown.
Over the weekend, the California Post and the New York Post published a roundup of those detained and headed for deportation, the lion’s share of the crackdown centered in Los Angeles, which has a large Persian community.
Among the most prominent is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, the woman known as “Screaming Mary.” She was the Islamic revolution’s spokesperson for militants involved in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, where 66 Americans were taken hostage.
The event marked the beginning of the U.S.’s 47-year conflict with Iran’s theocratic regime.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Ebtekar’s son, Seyed Eissa Hashemi, along with his wife and child this week after the Post reported they were living in Los Angeles.
Hashemi had been reporting missing by family members until authorities confirmed he had been taken into custody.
A week earlier, the niece of slain general Qasem Soleimani and her daughter were also arrested in Los Angeles by immigration authorities.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and her daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny, 25, had their green cards revoked on April 3.
News reports featured social media photos the two women posted of their lavish lifestyle, designer clothing, and revealing swimwear that would have landed them in deep trouble if they were living in Tehran.
Afshar supported the Iranian regime in public posts, where she was also critical of the United States, reportedly calling it the “Great Satan,” according to a report also carried by Breitbart News.
Both mother and daughter came to the U.S. on legitimate visas and were then granted asylum status and green cards, though the mother made four trips back to Iran, with DHS alleging “her trips to Iran illustrate her asylum claims were fraudulent.”
In 2020, near the end of his first term, President Donald Trump ordered a fatal drone strike on Soleimani near the Bagdad airport, saying “the father of the roadside bomb” was planning more attacks on U.S. soldiers and diplomats there.
In a separate case in Atlanta, Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, a faculty member at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi, were also removed from the country following a petition and local protests.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Ardeshir is the daughter of notorious Iranian security official Ali Larijani, a confidant of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike with many other top members of the regime as they met the morning of February 28.
In January, well before the military strikes of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. Treasury Department levied sanctions against Ali Larijani for being “one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.”
Ali Larijani was briefly seen as the de facto leader of Iran as Operation Epic Fury unfolded.
His tenure did not last long. Another Israeli airstrike on March 17 took him out, also killing his son, Morteza.
Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani reportedly received legal status with a green card in 2021 under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Anyone connected to Iran’s “death to America” theocracy appears to be living in the U.S. on borrowed time these days, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio issuing a warning in a post on X earlier this month.
“The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes,” Rubio said.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.