The United States has revoked the permanent residency status of two women associated with the late Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who led the Quds Force, the overseas branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), from 1998 until his assassination in 2020.
The US State Department said in a statement on Saturday that Soleimani’s niece Hamide Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were arrested on Friday night.
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The two are currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody as the United States seeks their departure.
The case raises questions about limits on free speech rights in the United States and the extent to which families should be punished for their relationships.
Citing media reports and social media posts, the State Department described Soleimani Afshar as “an outspoken supporter of Iran’s totalitarian terrorist regime.” He added that such speech will not be tolerated under US President Donald Trump.
“The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a base for foreigners who support an anti-American terrorist regime,” the statement said.
The announcement comes as the United States and Israel enter their fifth week of war against Iran, which began on February 28th.
The case marks at least the second time this month that the U.S. government has stripped a family connected to Iran’s supreme leader of legal immigration status.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed on social media that he took credit for the decision to revoke the two women’s green cards. She pointed to Soleimani Afshar’s comments as the reason for her and her daughter’s arrest.
“This week, I stripped Afshar and his daughter of their legal status,” Rubio wrote.
“She is also an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime, which has praised its attacks on Americans and called our country the ‘Great Satan.’”
The State Department also highlighted Soleimani Afshar’s “lavish lifestyle” in Los Angeles in a statement. As part of the decision, Soleimani Afshar’s husband was also barred from entering the United States.
Public pressure to expel relatives of Iranian officials
Similar action was taken this month against Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani, the daughter of the late Ali Larijani, former head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to the State Department.
She and her husband, Seyed Qalantar Motamedi, saw their legal U.S. immigration status revoked and subsequently barred from re-entering the country.
Larijani, one of the most senior Iranian government officials, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 17 as part of the ongoing war.
Meanwhile, Soleimani was assassinated by a U.S. drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport in January 2020, during President Trump’s first term.
The expulsion of Larijani and Soleimani’s relatives from the United States follows pressure from conservative politicians and activists calling for their expulsion.
Shortly after Saturday’s announcement, far-right influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer wrote on social media that she had reported Soleimani’s niece to the State Department and thanked Rubio for his actions.
“This is a big scalp,” she said of Soleimeini Afshar’s dismissal.
An online petition launched two months ago on the website Change.org also calls for Soleimeini Afshar’s deportation and has gathered more than 4,000 signatures since the start of the war.
Meanwhile, Ardeshir Larijani was a professor of oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in southern Georgia.
After Iran launched a deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters in December and January, demonstrators gathered at the university’s cancer institute to demand the removal of Ardeshir Larijani.
A Change.org petition calling for her deportation had 157,017 signatures as of Saturday.
The petition highlighted the family ties between Ardeshir Larijani and the government of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war.
“While she lives peacefully in the United States, countless young Iranians are losing their lives in Iran due to the policies and decisions of Ali Khamenei and his inner circle, including her father,” the petition reads.
U.S. Representative Earl “Buddy” Carter of Georgia also weighed in on the push, calling for Ardeshir Larijani’s state medical license to be revoked.
“America’s medical institutions should not serve as safe havens for individuals connected by blood and loyalty to an administration that openly demands the death of Americans,” Republicans said in an open letter to Emory. “Patient safety, public trust, and national security require decisive action now.”
As of January, Ardeshir Larijani was no longer employed at Emory, according to the Emory Wheel, the school’s student newspaper.
