US revokes legal residency status of family of ex-Iranian Guard Soleimani, places them in ICE custody

The nephew and grandson of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Major General Qasem Soleimani were arrested Friday night after their US permanent residency was revoked.

The State Department said in a statement on Saturday that Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter have been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Soleimani Afshar promoted the Iranian regime’s propaganda, celebrated attacks on American troops in the Middle East, and denounced America as the “Great Satan,” while “enjoying a glamorous life in Los Angeles,” the statement said.

“As indicated by both media reports and his comments on social media, Soleimani Afshar is an outspoken supporter of the terrorist regime in Iran,” the US State Department said in a statement.

The US Department of Homeland Security said Soleimani Afshar’s 2019 claim was “fraudulent,” citing at least four trips back to Iran after being granted a green card. Her husband is also banned from entering the US, the State Department said. The government will now take away their green cards and eventually deport them, DHS said.

“It is a privilege to be granted a green card to stay in the United States of America. If we have reason to believe that a green card holder poses a threat to the US, the green card will be revoked,” said a DHS spokesperson in a statement sent to CBS News.

Iran’s military leader Soleimani died in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020. He was the architect of Iran’s regional military operations and is revered as a national symbol among supporters of Iran’s theocracy.

Little known in Iran until the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Soleimani’s popularity and mystique grew after US officials called for his death for his help arming the military with roadside bombs that killed and maimed US soldiers.

A decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran’s best-known military commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but growing in power, if not more, than its public leadership.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he also revoked the official position of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of former Iranian National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. A senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani he was killed in a plane crash last month. Her daughter and her husband are no longer in the country.

“The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a home for people from other countries who support terrorist regimes against America,” Rubio said in a statement sent to X.

Rubio used the same rare powers last year to justify the arrest and deportation of several pro-Palestinian activists with legal standing, including a Columbia University student. Mahmoud Khalil. Those efforts have been blocked by federal court cases that say Rubio’s rulings penalize free speech activists.

Shortly after their arrests were announced, far-right activist Laura Loomer said on social media that she had reported Soleimani’s nephew to the State Department.