The US government revoked the green cards or visas of at least four Iranian nationals connected to the Islamic Republic regime, including two who it claimed are the niece and grand-niece of a former top Iranian military leader, Gen Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike near the Baghdad airport in Iraq in 2020.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, who was not named, were arrested on Friday by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a statement said, adding that Afshar’s husband has also been banned from entering the United States. They are now to be deported, officials told news agency AP. The two others who were also targeted this week were not immediately named.
However, Iranian media on Saturday quoted two daughters of Qassem Soleimani denying that two Iranian women arrested in the United States were their relatives.
Part of a wider move
The actions were taken earlier this week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined the four persons were no longer eligible for either lawful permanent resident status, or to enter the United States.
The steps follow a move late last year in which the visas of several diplomats and staffers at Iran’s mission to the United Nations were also revoked.
Who is Hamideh Soleimani Afshar
In its statement on Saturday, the US State Department claimed Afshar and her daughter had been living a “lavish lifestyle” in Los Angeles for many years while publicly supporting the Iranian government and anti-American attacks. Further details on her profession were not shared.
She is “an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the ‘Great Satan’,” Rubio said in a post on X.
“The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes,” he added.
But, according to the Iranian news agency Fars, Soleimani’s daughter Zeinab said: “The US State Department’s claim is a lie: the people arrested in the United States have no connection to the family.”
Iranian state TV cited another daughter, Narjes, a member of Tehran’s Islamic City Council, as saying: “To this day, no member of the family nor any relative of Martyr Soleimani has resided in the United States.”
The Iranian mission to the UN had made no comment as of Saturday. Iran has no formal diplomatic relations with the US.
Afshar and her daughter are just the latest Iranians to have their legal status in the US rescinded.
Donald Trump’s regime recently revoked the visas of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, an academic and the daughter of Iran’s former national security adviser Ali Larijani who was killed in a US-Israel airstrike last month.
Her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi, also had his visa revoked, the State Department said. Neither are still in the US, though it’s not clear where they are.
In early December, well before the surge of anti-government protests in Iran and the start of the war, the State Department revoked or declined to renew visas of several Iranian diplomats, including the deputy ambassador, and staffers at Iran’s mission to the United Nations.
