ICE Detains Relatives of 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis Figure After Rubio Revokes Legal Status

In a series of actions over the past two weeks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stripped lawful permanent resident status from at least seven Iranian nationals living in the United States — not because of anything they personally did, but because of who their relatives are. The detainees, now in ICE custody and facing deportation, are connected by blood or marriage to figures in Iran's revolutionary and military establishment. The government's legal vehicle: an obscure provision of immigration law that has been used only a handful of times in American history.

Who Has Been Detained

Three separate sets of individuals have been publicly identified.

The Ebtekar family. On April 11, Rubio announced the revocation of green cards held by Eissa Seyed Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son Seyed Mobin Hashemi [1]. Eissa Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, the Iranian official known as "Screaming Mary" who served as the English-language spokeswoman for the militants who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days [2]. The family entered the United States in 2014 on visas issued during the Obama administration and received lawful permanent resident status in June 2016 through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program [1].

The Soleimani relatives. On April 4, Rubio terminated the green cards of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, the niece of slain Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani, and her daughter [3]. The State Department described Afshar as "an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the 'Great Satan'" [3].

The Larijani family. Rubio also revoked the status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi [4].

All seven individuals were detained in the Los Angeles area and placed in ICE custody pending removal proceedings [1][3].

The Legal Mechanism: INA Section 212(a)(3)(C)

The government is acting under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the Secretary of State to deem a person inadmissible if their "entry or proposed activities in the United States" would have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" [5]. A companion provision, INA Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i), extends this authority to deportation, permitting removal of a noncitizen whose presence the Secretary determines "could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" [6].

The use of this authority against green card holders has been described as "exceedingly rare" [7]. The most significant precedent is Matter of Ruiz-Massieu (1999), in which the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that a formal letter from the Secretary of State, stating "facially reasonable and bona fide reasons" for the determination, is by itself sufficient evidence to meet the clear and convincing standard for deportability [8]. In that case, then-Secretary Warren Christopher determined that allowing former Mexican deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz-Massieu to remain in the U.S. would damage law enforcement cooperation with Mexico [8].

There is a notable counterpoint. In the same case at the district court level, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry declared the statute "unconstitutionally vague and lacking sufficiently intelligible standards to direct the Secretary's exercise of discretion" [8]. That ruling was effectively superseded by the BIA decision but underscores the unsettled constitutional terrain.

The INA does include a First Amendment safeguard: the foreign policy ground cannot be applied solely because of "beliefs, statements, or associations" that would be lawful in the United States — unless the Secretary personally certifies that the individual's presence would "compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest," a higher threshold than the general "seriously adverse" standard [5][6].

Due Process Questions

The Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process applies to all persons on U.S. soil, including lawful permanent residents. The Supreme Court established in Bridges v. Wixon (1945) that once a noncitizen "lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders," including First and Fifth Amendment protections [9].

Whether the Ebtekar, Soleimani, and Larijani family members received notice, a hearing, or access to counsel before being taken into custody is not publicly known. Rubio's statement on the Ebtekar family framed the action as a fait accompli: "Her family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country. America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families" [1]. As of this writing, it is unclear whether any of the seven individuals have retained legal counsel or plan to contest the revocations in immigration court [2].

The Khalil v. Trump case, now working through the federal courts, has become the leading test of the government's power to revoke green cards on foreign-policy grounds. In March 2025, ICE agents arrested Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and told his wife they had revoked his green card — "even though permanent residents are entitled to due process before any revocation of their status," the ACLU argued [10]. The Third Circuit initially ruled that federal courts lacked jurisdiction over Khalil's constitutional claims, directing them into immigration proceedings, though that order remains under review [10].

The Connection Problem: Guilt by Association?

The detained individuals are not accused of any personal involvement in the 1979 hostage crisis, the activities of Qasem Soleimani, or the policies of Ali Larijani. Eissa Hashemi was not born until after the hostage crisis ended. The government's public statements cite familial relationships as the operative fact [1][3].

Masoumeh Ebtekar's role was substantial. As the spokeswoman for the hostage-takers, she became the public face of the crisis in American media, conducting English-language interviews while 52 Americans endured 444 days of captivity that included beatings, starvation, and mock executions [2]. She later rose to become Vice President of Iran under President Mohammad Khatami. But Ebtekar herself is not in the United States and is not the subject of these immigration actions — her son and his family are [1].

Qasem Soleimani commanded the IRGC's Quds Force, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization, and was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 [3]. His niece Afshar is accused in the State Department's statement of being "an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime," though no specific acts are detailed beyond speech [3].

No evidentiary standard has been publicly articulated beyond the Secretary's own determination. Under the Ruiz-Massieu precedent, the Secretary's letter alone satisfies the burden of proof [8].

The Government's Case

Supporters of the administration's actions advance several arguments.

First, the hostage crisis inflicted documented psychological and physical harm on 52 Americans and their families — harm that went largely uncompensated for decades. The Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act, passed in 2015, authorized $4.4 million for each hostage or their estate, but less than a quarter of the funds were actually distributed after 9/11 families were added to the same fund [11]. For many hostage families, the idea that relatives of the crisis's chief propagandist were granted green cards during the same period feels like an additional injury.

Second, the administration frames these actions as part of a "maximum pressure" strategy toward Iran. Rubio has described families of regime figures living comfortably in the West as a form of hypocrisy, where Iranian elites condemn America while their relatives enjoy its benefits [4][7].

Third, defenders argue that lawful permanent residency is a privilege, not a right, and that the Secretary of State's foreign policy determination power exists precisely for cases where national security and foreign relations intersect with immigration [5].

The Broader Pattern

The Ebtekar and Soleimani cases are not isolated incidents. According to VisaVerge, up to 4,000 visas and green cards held by individuals the administration describes as relatives of senior IRGC and government officials are under review for cancellation [7]. Presidential Proclamation 10998, effective January 1, 2026, suspended all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa issuance for Iranian nationals, including F-1 student visas [7]. A USCIS policy memorandum placed indefinite holds on pending green card, employment-based, and citizenship applications for nationals of 19 countries designated as "high-risk," with Iran among them [7].

Source: State Department / VisaVerge

Data as of Apr 11, 2026CSV

The asylum approval rate for Iranian nationals has dropped sharply, from 86% in fiscal year 2023 to an estimated 48% in fiscal year 2026 [12].

Source: TRAC Immigration

Data as of Apr 1, 2026CSV

Before the current U.S.-Iran military conflict began in late February 2026, the Trump administration had negotiated with Tehran to deport as many as 400 Iranians in ICE custody, with at least 175 sent back on three flights since September 2025 [12]. The administration also quietly ended the Lautenberg-Specter program, a decades-old resettlement pathway for religious minorities from Iran and the former Soviet Union, stranding an estimated 14,000 Iranians who had organized their lives around that program [12].

Reports from Time and El Paso Matters describe Iranian asylum seekers — including religious converts and gay men fleeing persecution — held in ICE facilities for months to over a year, with the war complicating deportation logistics [12][13].

Historical Comparisons

The use of immigration enforcement against relatives of foreign adversaries, rather than against the adversaries themselves, is unusual in American history.

During the Cold War, the United States generally granted protected status to relatives of Soviet and Eastern Bloc figures who defected or otherwise opposed their governments. Cuban families who arrived during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 received expedited processing even when their relatives included government officials [14]. Relatives of North Korean defectors have been granted asylum on the basis of persecution risk.

The reverse scenario — revoking legal status from relatives of hostile-state officials who are themselves accused of no wrongdoing — does not have a clear Cold War parallel. The closest analogy may be the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, in which family and ethnic association substituted for individual evidence of wrongdoing — a policy the U.S. government later formally repudiated and paid reparations for through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

Diplomatic Fallout

These actions are occurring against the backdrop of active U.S.-Iran hostilities and simultaneous peace negotiations. On April 11, U.S. and Iranian officials are meeting face-to-face in Islamabad, Pakistan, for talks mediated by Pakistani officials — the most direct diplomatic contact since the conflict escalated in February [15]. Earlier rounds of indirect talks took place in Muscat, Oman, on February 6, though Rubio expressed skepticism about their prospects, saying "I'm not sure you can reach a deal with these guys" [16].

Iran's official response to the green card revocations has not been widely reported in English-language media. However, the International Crisis Group has noted that immigration enforcement actions targeting Iranian nationals risk complicating already fragile negotiating dynamics [17]. Arms control analysts have argued that U.S. negotiators entered the current talks "ill-prepared" and that actions perceived as collective punishment could harden Iranian positions on nuclear concessions [18].

No formal objections from U.S. allies or major international human rights bodies have been publicly reported as of April 11, though the conflict itself has drawn broad international attention.

What Comes Next

The legal and political trajectories of these cases depend on several factors: whether the detained individuals mount legal challenges, whether courts are willing to review the Secretary of State's foreign-policy determinations, and whether the Khalil v. Trump litigation produces a definitive ruling on due process protections for green card holders facing revocation.

The administration has signaled that these seven cases are the beginning, not the end. With 4,000 additional cases reportedly under review, the scope of the campaign to strip immigration benefits from relatives of Iranian officials could expand significantly [7]. For immigration attorneys, the central question is whether the foreign-policy ground of removal — designed for exceptional cases and used only a handful of times in decades — is being transformed into a tool of broad policy enforcement against an entire national-origin group.

For the families now in ICE custody, the stakes are immediate: deportation to Iran during an active military conflict with the United States.