Seven Iranian nationals with direct ties to Tehran's ruling regime have been detained, had their immigration status revoked, or been removed from the United States in a coordinated crackdown led by the State Department and ICE, the New York Post reported. The sweep marks one of the most targeted enforcement actions against regime-connected figures living on American soil.
Five of the seven had previously been identified by the Post as living comfortable lifestyles in Los Angeles. The others were based in Atlanta. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is driving the effort, which the Trump administration has framed as a priority: removing anyone connected to what it calls an anti-American regime from the benefits of life in the United States.
The names are not obscure. They trace back to some of the most recognizable figures in Iran's power structure, from the militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979 to the general whose forces killed American troops across the Middle East.
ICE agents detained Seyed Eissa Hashemi this week, along with his wife and child. Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, known as "Screaming Mary," who served as a spokesperson for the militants who seized the American Embassy in Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis. The Post had previously reported on the family's lifestyle in Los Angeles.
That hostage crisis, 444 days of captivity for 52 Americans, remains one of the most humiliating episodes in U.S. diplomatic history. Ebtekar became the English-language face of the militants, taunting the United States on camera. Her son, decades later, had been living in the country his mother helped terrorize.
The detention came after the Post's reporting drew public attention to the family's presence in the U.S. It remains unclear on what exact date ICE took Hashemi into custody or what specific legal basis was cited for the action.
On April 3, the government revoked the green cards of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and her 25-year-old daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny. Afshar is the niece of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian military commander killed in a U.S. drone strike. Both had been living in Los Angeles.
Afshar had expressed support for the Iranian regime in public posts, including praise for its leadership and rhetoric critical of the United States, all while holding a U.S. green card and enjoying the freedoms that come with it. Breitbart reported that both women were arrested in Los Angeles after the revocations.
Just a week before the April 3 revocations, two other Iranians with ties to Soleimani had also been detained. The identities of those individuals were not specified in the Post's reporting.
The pattern is hard to miss. Relatives of one of the most powerful military figures in Iran's recent history were living freely in the very country his Quds Force targeted, and, in at least one case, openly praising the regime online while doing so. That arrangement has now ended.
Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, described as the daughter of a senior Iranian official, had been working as an assistant professor at Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta. She and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi, were removed from the country amid mounting political pressure and backlash over her role.
The name of the senior Iranian official who is Ardeshir-Larijani's parent was not identified in the Post's account. But the case drew attention to a broader question: how many relatives of Iran's ruling class have quietly embedded themselves in American institutions, universities, hospitals, research centers, while their families back home prop up a government that chants "Death to America" as official policy?
Federal law enforcement has been active across multiple fronts in Los Angeles and other major cities, pursuing cases that range from fraud to immigration violations. The Ardeshir-Larijani removal adds a national-security dimension to that enforcement picture.
Rubio has been blunt about the policy. In a statement reported by the Post, he said the administration:
"will never allow America to become a home for foreign nationals tied to anti-American terrorist regimes."
He followed up with a second statement that left no room for ambiguity:
"America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families, and under the Trump Administration, it never will."
The language is deliberate. Rubio is not describing a general immigration enforcement posture. He is drawing a specific line: the families of hostile foreign officials and operatives will not be allowed to enjoy the prosperity and safety of the United States while their relatives work to undermine it.
That principle should not be controversial. But the enforcement has drawn criticism from some quarters. AP News reported that the broader crackdown on Iranian nationals has also swept up individuals who have lived in the U.S. for decades and were complying with long-standing immigration check-in requirements. Mandonna "Donna" Kashanian, a 64-year-old Iranian woman who had lived in the U.S. for 47 years, was arrested by ICE while gardening at her New Orleans home, her family said. Her family told AP she had consistently met her check-in obligations.
Ryan Costello of the National Iranian American Council told AP:
"Some level of vigilance, of course, makes sense, but what it seems like ICE has done is basically give out an order to round up as many Iranians as you can, whether or not they're linked to any threat and then arrest them and deport them, which is very concerning."
That framing conflates two very different situations. A 64-year-old grandmother who has checked in with immigration officials for decades is not the same as the niece of Qasem Soleimani posting praise for the Iranian regime from a Los Angeles apartment. The Trump administration's challenge is to maintain that distinction. But the core principle, that regime-connected figures should not enjoy American life while their families wage ideological and military campaigns against the country, is sound.
The DHS announced at least 11 Iranian arrests on immigration violations during the weekend of U.S. missile strikes on Iran, AP reported, tying the enforcement surge to heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. The administration has also pursued deportations to third countries when direct return to Iran is difficult.
The scale of the effort raises legitimate operational questions. What legal or administrative basis is being used for the green-card revocations? Which agency specifically revoked Afshar's and Hosseiny's cards? What due-process protections apply when immigration status is stripped from regime-connected individuals? These questions remain unanswered in the available reporting.
But the political logic is clear. For years, the families of Iran's most powerful figures have lived dual lives, benefiting from American freedom, safety, and prosperity while their relatives in Tehran pursued nuclear weapons, funded terrorist proxies, and orchestrated attacks on U.S. forces. The Trump administration has decided that arrangement is over.
The broader political landscape around the administration's enforcement posture remains contentious. Some Democrats have signaled they would pursue impeachment if they retake the House, framing the administration's actions as executive overreach. Meanwhile, the administration has pressed its case on multiple legal fronts, including urging the Supreme Court to apply common sense in high-stakes rulings touching on executive authority.
Threats against the agents carrying out these enforcement actions have also escalated. Federal authorities recently arrested an Ohio man for allegedly threatening to kill ICE agents, a reminder that the men and women executing these operations face real danger, not just political criticism.
The seven cases reported by the Post are individually striking. Taken together, they reveal something larger: a long-standing failure by previous administrations to scrutinize who was being granted the privilege of living in the United States.
The son of the woman who taunted American hostages on television. The niece of the general who directed operations that killed American soldiers. The daughter of a senior regime official, embedded in a prestigious American university. All living freely, some for years, in the country their families worked to destabilize.
How did they get here? Who approved their visas, their green cards, their residency? Those questions deserve answers that go beyond the current enforcement actions. The Trump administration is cleaning up a mess. But someone made the mess in the first place.
A country that cannot distinguish between a legitimate immigrant and the relative of a hostile foreign operative enjoying American prosperity as a fringe benefit of regime power is a country that has stopped taking its own security seriously. The current administration, whatever criticism it draws, has at least started asking the right questions.
