US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani after the Trump administration revoked their lawful permanent resident status, officials said on Saturday. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the State Department confirmed.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the mother and daughter are “pending removal” from the United States. The action came after US and Israeli forces began military operations against Iran in late February, in part citing Iran’s history of supporting terrorism. Rubio stated that the administration “will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes”.
Officials allege that Soleimani Afshar celebrated military strikes against American personnel, praised Iran’s new supreme leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and referred to the US as the “Great Satan”. She is also said to have voiced “unflinching support” for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while maintaining a “lavish” lifestyle in Los Angeles, with her Instagram account cited as evidence.
In addition to the revocation of green cards for the two women, Soleimani Afshar’s husband has been formally banned from entering the US. The move follows a separate case in which Rubio terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of a former Iranian security official, and her husband; both have since left the US and are under a permanent entry ban. Earlier, in December, the State Department revoked or declined to renew visas for several Iranian diplomats, including the deputy ambassador to the UN.
Soleimani Afshar’s father, the commander of the elite Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 during Donald Trump’s first presidency. At the time, he was considered the most powerful figure in Iran after the supreme leader. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed revenge, with former president Ebrahim Raisi saying in 2023: “The Americans must know that revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood is certain, and the murderers and perpetrators will have no easy sleep.”
