April 4 (UPI) — ICE agents took the niece and grandniece of an Iranian general who was killed in 2020 in an airstrike during the first Trump administration into custody on Saturday.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were taken into custody after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their lawful permanent resident status earlier this week.
The State Department said in a press release that they were arrested based on Soleimani Afshar’s promotion of Iranian regime propaganda, support for Iranian-linked terror organizations and celebration of attacks against American soldiers and military assets in the Middle East.
“Until recently, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were green card holders living lavishly in the United States,” Rubio said in a post on X.
“Afshar is the neice of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani,” he said. “She is also an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the ‘Great Satan.'”
Qassem Soleimani was killed on Jan. 3, 2020, in a U.S. military airstrike on his motorcade near the Baghdad airport during the first Trump administration, which Trump had ordered in retaliation for protesters storming the U.S. embassy in Baghdad days earlier.
Iran and its allies responded furiously at the death of one of its top generals, which included issuing arrest warrants to Trump and other members of his administration on charges of crimes punishable by death.
The State Department said in its release that Soleimani Afshar, whose husband also has been barred from entering the United States, was an outspoken supporter of the Iranian region who promoted the dictatorship alongside posts of her “lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles.”
Earlier this month, Rubio also terminated the legal U.S. status of Fatemeh Argeshir-Larijani, the daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Council of Iran Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kanatar Motamedi, both of which the State Department said are not in the United States and have been barred from coming back.
Ali Larijani, who was one seniority level below the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike minutes after two Iranian state-run news agencies said he was about to release a statement about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
About the Author
