A new movement is gaining traction among church leaders with the hopes of helping address affordable housing.

Most people have heard about NIMBY, short for “Not in my backyard,” a term used to describe opposition to new housing or development projects in one’s community.

But there’s a new twist on the idea: YIGBY, or “Yes in God’s backyard.” This concept is gaining traction in Connecticut and across the country as faith-based organizations explore ways to use their land for affordable housing, creating opportunities for communities while addressing a growing housing shortage.

Religious groups collectively own more than 2.6 million acres across the US, much of it underused. That land could support as many as 800,000 new homes, according to a 2025 Forbes report.

In Connecticut, lawmakers are now trying to turn that idea into policy.

A new measure—House Bill 5396—aims to accelerate the approval process for affordable housing projects on land owned by religious organizations.

Housing affordability remains a major challenge

Connecticut earned an F on the Realtor.com® State-by-State Housing Report Card, part of the Let America Build campaign that tracks how effectively each state balances affordability and new construction.

Connecticut’s strong economy and high household incomes aren’t enough to offset a tight housing market, where the median listing price has climbed to $499,700, leaving many residents priced out.

“We see on a pastoral level the impacts of housing scarcity in our state. We are inspired by the possibility of being part of the solution,” the Rev. Caitlin O’Brien, senior organizer at Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, tells Realtor.com.

How this bill could help

Known as the YIGBY bill, House Bill 5396 would allow qualifying developments to undergo “summary review” without bypassing local governance. Under this process, projects that meet local zoning requirements could be approved without a public hearing or other procedural delays.

Municipalities would have 90 days to decide on any application, and at least 30% of the units in a YIGBY development would need to be designated as affordable to qualify.

“We are well-positioned geographically and philosophically to be a key contributor to solutions, but it just won’t happen if we don’t see a clear and predictable path. YIGBY would make sure the development standards are clear and predictable,” O’Brien says.

Pete Harrison, the Connecticut director of the Regional Plan Association, tells Realtor.com that he backs the bill, noting that it would significantly simplify the zoning approval process.

“It really is an interesting convergence of opportunity and need where you do have a number of religious organizations that have what’s called surplus land, and we have a desperate need for more housing,” he says. “So any way that we can get that connection streamlined into something that benefits all parties is a really good outcome.”

Nick Kantor, program director at Pro Homes Connecticut, tells Realtor.com that the bill addresses two key challenges: the lack of affordable land in Connecticut and the complexity of the zoning process.

“At the heart of this, you have organizations that want to do the right thing and build housing as part of their service to the community,” Kantor says. “But they often get stuck on the unpredictability of the process.”

He says the bill offers a practical solution by tapping land owned by religious organizations and connecting it to the need for affordable housing.

“It’s about marrying those two together to unlock potential,” he says.

Debate over the bill

The bill cleared the Planning and Development Committee this year and is awaiting action by the full House and Senate before it can reach the governor’s desk.

Not everyone supports the measure.

“I’m concerned this will give religious organizations preferential treatment—and, constitutionally, that could be a problem,” Republican Sen. Jeff Gordon, an opponent of the bill, tells Realtor.com.

“We need to get away from all these state mandates that haven’t worked for decades for affordable housing, and we need to respect local decision-making,” Gordon, who served for 16 years on his local planning and zoning commission, says. “They know their towns best. They don’t need the state government that doesn’t know their local municipalities telling them what to do.”

But Democratic Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, a supporter of the bill, disagrees.

“We are not going to be able to increase land in Connecticut, and we have a lot of land that’s tied up around churches, synagogues, and mosques,” she tells Realtor.com. “People like seniors, teachers, nurses, and recent college graduates need housing, because it really is a challenge. Our homeless rates are going up. This is a creative solution to the housing affordability crisis.”

If passed, the bill could test whether faith-based land can play a meaningful role in easing Connecticut’s housing shortage.

Scottie Scheffler rarely gets a bad review at Augusta National. But there was one evening three years ago when his choices didn’t play so well to the gallery.

‘It was f***ing rocket fuel,’ says Danny Willett.

We’re talking about one of the most famous traditions of the Masters – the Champions Dinner – and Willett has recalled the starter from 2023, when, as is custom, the previous year’s winner Scheffler took his first swing at setting the menu.

‘It was a Mexican tortilla soup,’ Willett adds. ‘I asked him if he was trying to kill us all off. Brutal. We’re sat at that table and sweating.’

That table. It might just be the most sanctified in all of sport, approximately 40ft long and squeezed into the small library on the second floor of Augusta’s stately clubhouse. If you win their tournament, a seat is yours for life. But you do have to eat whatever the defending champion has chosen.

Each Tuesday of tournament week, it is a ritual. Sacred, almost. And sure as Azaleas will bloom in spring, so too do the syrupy reflections about what it all means. But where better for syrup than dinner?

Two-time Masters winner Scottie Scheffler (right) rarely gets a bad review at Augusta National. But there was one evening three years ago when his choices didn’t play so well to the gallery

That table. It might just be the most sanctified in all of sport, approximately 40ft long and squeezed into the small library on the second floor of Augusta’s stately clubhouse

If you win the tournament, a seat is yours for life. But you do have to eat whatever the defending champion has chosen

By consensus of the gilded few, it is a uniquely charming evening of reminiscence, where past champions gather as links in a chain across the generations. The oldest boy is Gary Player – 90 years young, owner of three Green Jackets and usually sat apart from the other big beasts – and the youngest is Scheffler, aged 29 and still a touch awkward about where he should park himself; the newest is Rory McIlroy and tomorrow he’ll serve elk.

They all have their tales from the library. And they all share them in reverential tones.

‘When you sit in that room, you are surrounded by the history of that great tournament,’ Player told me last week. ‘It is not simply a dinner. It is a celebration. Special.’

But like all celebrations, it can get messy.

The late Herman Keiser, a man of a few grudges, once got started on the booze early and was found asleep in the toilet, Sam Snead used to clear the decks with his dirty jokes, and Ian Woosnam regrets what happened to his lamb. Willett? He reckons someone opened the oven door early, deflating his Yorkshire puddings, and Bernhard Langer wishes Arnold Palmer never raised the subject of the damned grass.

It takes an awful lot to get into that room of status and standing and secrets. But every so often, a few stories do creep out.

Butch Harmon is laughing. He’s one of the most renowned coaches in golf, a Svengali to Tiger Woods and McIlroy once upon a time, and he is also among the sport’s best raconteurs. The tale in his mind was inherited from his father, Claude, Masters champion in 1948 and a regular at the dinner between its inception in 1952 and his passing in 1989.

‘The funny stories were always about Sam Snead (champion in 1949, ’52 and ’54),’ says Harmon Jr. ‘He would always be telling off-colour jokes and Byron Nelson (1937 and ’42) couldn’t handle it. Eventually Byron would say, “Okay, Sam, we’ve heard enough of these risqué jokes. Let’s get back to talking about golf”.

‘The funny stories were always about Sam Snead (right, pictured with Arnold Palmer after the third round in 1958 when they were tied for the lead)’

By consensus of the gilded few, it is a uniquely charming evening of reminiscence, where past champions gather as links in a chain across the generations

The 1958 dinner, hosted by 1957 Green Jacket winner Doug Ford with Claude Harmon bottom left

‘My dad used to say Sam couldn’t help himself. He would just jump right in and tell them.’

Alas, times change and eras dilute. As Butch Harmon says: ‘In the old days, it was a little different than it is now. The old-timers were kind of a close-knit group.’

There were nine men at the first dinner in 1952 – seven champions and Augusta National’s two co-founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, all brought together by the 1951 winner Ben Hogan under one stipulation: ‘You wear your green coat.’

Today, there are usually 30-plus who make the trip in their jackets, in addition to the club chairman, Fred Ridley. Responsibility for keeping the evening on track passed to two-time winner Ben Crenshaw from Nelson in 2005, a year before Nelson died.

Predictably, Augusta National tend to provide little information on the evening beyond publicising the food and wine. Woods, who has had to think up the menu five times, has served everything from burgers and milkshakes to porterhouse steak, fajitas and sushi. Sir Nick Faldo went for fish and chips. Scotland’s Sandy Lyle chose haggis, Langer’s offering included Wiener schnitzel. Usually, the chefs rise to the request; occasionally the intention and output do not align.

Ian Woosnam once told me his grand plan in 1992 went wrong. ‘At a hotel in Oswestry I had this lovely leg of Welsh lamb in hay and that was what I wanted,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, this was a time when they banned shipping meat if there was bone in it.’ Augusta ordered a few joints over from Wales minus the bone, and the end product wasn’t quite as imagined. ‘Everyone was chewing through this thing!’ Woosnam added.

McIlroy’s choices have already been noted – grilled elk sliders, a main of Wagyu filet mignon or seared salmon, which follow a course of yellowfin tuna carpaccio, along with bacon-wrapped dates inspired by his mother. Recalling how he celebrated last year by raiding the club’s cellar, McIlroy has picked a 1990 Château Lafite Rothschild, which costs up to $2,500 a bottle and is one of four wines he has paired with the meal. As host, he will pick up the five-figure tab.

‘It gets very expensive,’ says Willett, the 2016 champion. When Woods missed the 2021 engagement after one of his car crashes, he light-heartedly rued that he wouldn’t get a chance to run up Dustin Johnson’s bill. His latest road collision will keep him from doing likewise to McIlroy.

Snead, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan at the 1954 tournament

Rory McIlroy’s menu for this year’s dinner – which he will have to pick up the entire tab for

Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus – second and first in most major wins with a combined 33, including 11 at Augusta – always sit together with Tom Watson, a two-time winner here

Time will tell how Rory’s selections go down. The most maligned menus to date belonged to Bubba Watson in both 2013 and 2015 – Caesar salad, grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, macaroni and cheese, and vanilla ice cream. Faldo compared it to a Happy Meal.

By his own admission, Watson, a picky eater from a hamlet of 4,000 people called Bagdad in Florida, usually has a burrito before he arrives, just in case the offering isn’t to his liking. ‘He can leave a bit behind,’ says Willett, who is well placed to know – he usually sits next to Watson and Patrick Reed.

Of itself, choosing a seat can be as fraught as choosing the menu. ‘There is no defined rule on where you sit and that can make you nervous,’ Willett adds.

‘The first year is easy – you’re at the head of the table when you host, you choose the food and say your speech. But after that you kind of have to figure out what feels right for where you sit.’

That situation has become a labyrinth of unspoken hierarchies. To the left of the head, Woods always sits with Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, and Scheffler disclosed recently that no one dares crash their space. Player, with nine majors to his name, is curiously set apart from them as a man who marches to his own drum.

Faldo is often in Player’s vicinity, while Zach Johnson and Jordan Spieth pair together, as do Spaniards Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia. Often the decisions are made in advance like a schoolyard pact – you don’t want to go in without a plan.

‘I sit on the side opposite Tiger and Mr Nicklaus, and it’s the one that changes about the most,’ Willett says.

Naturally, the further you travel from the head, the rowdier it becomes. Charles Coody, the 1971 winner, told Golf Digest that the far end is where the ‘reprobates’ have always gone. It’s where Keiser, the 1946 champion, favoured and occasionally referenced his irritations against the establishment, whom he had accused of dirty tricks in the year he won, with elements of the membership having allegedly wagered on a Hogan victory.

Gary Player (left) won three Green Jackets, but keeps himself to himself rather than gatecrash the likes fo Nicklaus (right)

Bernhard Langer signs an autograph for Fred Couples before the 2002 dinner

He was said to have enjoyed ‘rubbing their noses in it’ by attending the dinner each year, though his enthusiasm for the occasion extended too far one April – he was found snoozing in the bathroom by his mate Fuzzy Zoeller. Needless to say, prior to his passing in 2002, Snead chose to sit at their end of the table.

Aside from the tone of the jokes, not much has changed at the dinner over the years. It was in 1959 that it switched from after the second round to the Tuesday and it was the 80s when the champions chose the food. Beyond those details, the structure holds. Like so much else at Augusta, it is deliberately timeless.

‘Today, there are many more nationalities at the table, which adds a very interesting dynamic to the evening,’ says Player, the Johannesburg native who became the first non-American to win the career grand slam. ‘But the spirit of the dinner has remained remarkably consistent. It is still an evening of camaraderie and storytelling.’

Player is the longest-standing attendee, having had his seat since 1962. At his first Champions Dinner, Player told me, he sat next to the co-founder Bobby Jones, a 13-time major winner, and chewed his ear off on the secrets of the course. It helped him win the Masters a further two times.

Other conversations have had less desirable consequences. Langer illustrated as much in a chat we had last year, when he brought up an observation the great Arnold Palmer had made at dinner in the late Eighties.

‘The chairman always comes in with us and at the time it was Hord Hardin,’ Langer said. ‘At the end, he asked, “If we can do anything better, let us know”. Well, Arnold got up and raised a point about the grass. Back then, half of the fairway was mowed away from us, and the other half was into us, so if you landed your tee shot where the grass was running away, the ball would run an extra 40 yards. On the other, the ball would dig in.

‘And so Arnold said, “You know, Mr Chairman, we’re good, but we’re not that good – we can’t always hit the down-grain”. The next day, all the mowers lined up at the green and mowed toward us and that’s been the case ever since. Lesson learned – be careful what you ask for!’

The players could laugh about that. But it was trickier to predict how the room would react in 2023, at the height of the LIV-based civil war in golf – there were six rebels present at the dinner and much relief when the evening passed cordially.

Fuzzy Zoeller (centre) found Herman Keiser (right) asleep in the toilet after a particularly heavy dinner one year

Arnold Palmer (left) won four Green Jackets, bettered only by Nicklaus (centre, six) and Woods (five) – but one request at a champions dinner put him in Langer’s bad books

Last year’s champions dinner photo, hosted by Scottie Scheffler (centre)

If there has been a conspicuous change to the occasion since that storm entered the tee cup, it has been around Phil Mickelson. Along with Fred Couples and Player, he was always the most gregarious talker in the room, but not so much lately.

‘He has become a bit quieter in there, which is a shame,’ says Willett. ‘Great storyteller. But it’s a really special evening. And a privilege to be there.

‘It’s getting shorter, I think, you are usually in and out within an hour and a half, because plenty of us have to be up and practising the next morning, but it will never get old. I hope it never changes.’

Not much chance of that at Augusta National.

Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Monday that killed more than 25 people in Iran.

Tehran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors as US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed.

Explosions rang out into the night in Tehran and low-flying jets could be heard for hours as the capital was pounded. Thick black smoke rose near the city’s Azadi Square after one airstrike hit the Sharif University of Technology grounds.

Two people were found dead in the rubble of a residential building in Haifa, according to Israeli authorities. The search was ongoing for two more even as new Iranian missile attacks hit the northern Israel city early Monday.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates both activated their air defense systems to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and drones, as Tehran kept up the pressure on its Gulf neighbors. Iran’s regular attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime, has sent global energy prices soaring.

Under pressure at home as consumers are growing increasingly concerned, Trump gave Tehran a deadline that expires Monday night, Washington time, saying if no deal was reached to reopen the strait the US would hit Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure targets and set the country “back to the stone ages.”

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he threatened in a social media post, adding that if Iran did not open the strait “you’ll be living in Hell.”

Trump’s deadline to open Hormuz strait looms but no signs of Tehran backing off

Tehran has shown no signs of backing down off of its stranglehold on shipping through the strait, which was fully open before Israel and the US attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.

Following Trump’s expletive-laced posts on Easter Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called the threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”

“You won’t gain anything through war crimes,” Qalibaf wrote on X. “The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”

Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to $109 in early Monday spot trading, some 50% higher than it was when the war started.

Iran has let some vessels through the strait since the war began, but none belonging to the US, Israel or countries perceived as helping them. Some have paid Iran for passage and the overall flow of traffic is down more than 90% over the same period last year.

Beyond Trump’s military threats, diplomatic efforts are still underway to see if a solution can be reached to open the waterway.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Airstrikes kill more than 25 across Iran

One of Monday’s morning airstrikes targeted Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology, where Iranian media reported damage to the buildings as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted on the grounds of the university, which is empty of students as the war has forced all schools into the country into online classes. However, multiple countries over the years have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is controlled by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

A strike near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killed at least 13 people, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Five others were killed when a residential area in the city of Qom was hit, and six more were killed in strikes on other cities, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper reported.

Three more people were killed when an airstrike hit a home in Tehran, Iranian state television reported.

War’s death toll in the thousands

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but its government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, which Israel has invaded by ground, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there while targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 US service members have been killed.

Pope Leo XIV, carrying a tall, lit candle through a darkened and silent St. Peter’s Basilica, ushered in Christianity’s most joyous celebration with his first Easter vigil service as pontiff Saturday night, urging that Easter would bring harmony and peace to a world torn by wars.

Easter for Christians commemorates Christ’s triumph over death with his resurrection following his crucifixion.

Lighting the candle before he entered the basilica, the pope intoned: “The light of Christ who rises in glory.”

Candle bearers stopped to light candles of the congregants as they walked down the central aisle, spreading flickers of light through the dark basilica before the lights went up as the pope arrived at the baroque main altar, followed by cardinals dressed in white.

In his homily, Leo called sin “a heavy barrier that closes us off and separates us from God, seeking to kill his words of hope within us,’’ and likened it to the stone that had covered Jesus’ tomb — but which was found overturned, revealing Jesus’ resurrection.

Leo said that there are stones representing sins to be overturned today, some “so heavy and so closely guarded that they seem to be immovable.”

“Some weigh heavily on the human heart, such as mistrust, fear, selfishness and resentment; others stemming from these inner struggles, sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations.

“Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by them!” the pope said, calling on the faithful to make a commitment “so that the Easter gifts of harmony and peace may grow and flourish everywhere and always throughout the world.’’

With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in its second month and Russia’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine, Leo has repeatedly called for a halt in hostilities.

On Palm Sunday, he said that God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who make war or cite God to justify their violence,

As is tradition, Leo baptized 10 adults from all over the world during the Mass.

During Leo’s first Holy Week, which is notoriously demanding, the pontiff carried the cross for the entire 14 stations during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday, the first time a pope has done so for decades.

On Holy Thursday, he washed the feet of 12 priests in the traditional Holy Thursday ritual, restoring a tradition his predecessor Pope Francis had broken by including laypeople and non-Christians.

On Sunday morning, Leo will celebrate an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square before delivering his Easter message and offer the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” message “to the city (of Rome) and the world,” which acts as a summary of the world’s woes.

Polymarket removed a forum related to the rescue mission of U.S. military servicemembers amid political pressure, the latest sign of mounting scrutiny around prediction markets.

U.S. and Iranian military forces are searching for a missing American airman after its F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday. One crew member has been rescued, but another is not accounted for.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., decried the Polymarket page that allowed users to bet on which day the U.S. would confirm the rescue of the two airmen after an American F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran. The lawmaker called the page “DISGUSTING” in an X post.

“They could be your neighbor, a friend, a family member,” Moulton wrote on Friday. “And people are betting on whether or not they’ll be saved.”

In a response on X, Polymarket said: “We took this market down immediately as it does not meet our integrity standards.”

“It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards,” Polymarket wrote.

In a separate X post, Polymarket said it doesn’t “make money or charge any fees on any geopolitical markets.”

In an email to CNBC, Moulton said, “Polymarket didn’t take that market down because it violated their standards. They took it down because we called them out.”

Moulton also said that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the authority to regulate prediction market platforms, but it is doing nothing.

“That needs to change, too,” he said. “Yesterday, there were 219 active bets in Polymarket’s ‘war’ category. Today, there are 223. This is spreading, and Congress needs to act.”

Moulton last month banned his staff from using prediction market platforms like Polymarket or Kalshi, a policy that his office believes is the first of its kind in Congress.

“Constituents that we serve should trust us to make decisions based on the right thing for do for our nation, not based on how bets might turn out,” Moulton said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Moulton also said on X that Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Donald Trump, “is an investor in this dystopian death market and may have access to intelligence that isn’t public yet.”

Requests for comment from Trump Jr. weren’t immediately returned to CNBC.

The Massachusetts lawmaker is part of a growing chorus of voices in Washington calling for stronger oversight of these betting platforms as interest swells.

A group of congressional Democrats introduced legislation late last month that would bar prediction markets from allowing wagers on elections, war and government actions, in addition to sports.

In February, six Democratic senators urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to clarify that it will prohibit any contracts related to an individual’s death. These contracts “present dangerous national security risks,” the lawmakers wrote.

The CFTC on Thursday announced lawsuits against three states over what it saw as efforts to circumvent the organization’s sole regulatory authority over prediction markets.

The NFL has also asked prediction market operators to keep specific event contracts that the league deems “objectionable bets” off their platforms. The league outlined examples of event contracts that could be easily manipulated, inherently objectionable, related to officiating, and knowable in advance — and asked that operators refrain from offering such trades.

— CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Azhar Sukri and Luke Fountain contributed to this report.

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.

By JIMMY MCCLOSKEY, HEAD OF NEWS

Published: 13:00 EDT, 4 April 2026 | Updated: 13:34 EDT, 4 April 2026

The niece and grand-niece of a notorious late Iranian general have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles and had their green cards revoked.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, who was not named, were detained by ICE on Friday while living the high life in the City of Angels. 

The pair had celebrated the deaths of US soldiers during President Donald Trump’s ongoing war with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Rubio added that the permanent residence status that allowed them to live indefinitely in the United States was revoked and that they will be deported at the first available opportunity. 

He wrote: ‘Until recently, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were green card holders living lavishly in the United States. 

‘Afshar is the niece of deceased Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani. She is also an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the “Great Satan.” 

‘This week, I terminated both Afshar and her daughter’s legal status and they are now in ICE custody, pending removal from the United States. 

‘The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.’

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, pictured, and her daughter have both been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in LA and had their green cards revoked over their alleged celebration of the deaths of US soldiers in Iran

Afshar is the niece of the notorious late Iranian general Qasem Soleimani (pictured), who was killed by a US drone strike at Baghdad Airport in January 2020

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the two women’s arrest and impending removal from the United States on his X account on Saturday

Afshar is the niece of Qasem Soleimani. 

He was one of Iran’s most powerful military figures and was the commander of the Quds force when he was killed by a US drone strike at Baghdad Airport in January 2020.

A press release issued by the State Department further accused Afshar of ‘promoting Iranian regime propaganda’.

It said she had ‘praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the “Great Satan” and voiced her unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terrorist organization.’

Rubio said his department had been alerted to Afshar’s antics by her posts about Iran and the United States on her since-deleted Instagram account. 

It is unclear how long she had been living in the United States for and how old her daughter is. 

Afshar’s anti-American rhetoric stepped up in recent weeks, after President Trump began bombing Iran on February 28.

The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in the US-Israel bombardment which has triggered international chaos.

Trump has said he will resume bombing within 48 hours if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping channel that much of the world’s oil supply must pass through. 

Developing story, check back for updates…