Three prominent Iranians who had been granted permanent legal status to live in the United States by the Obama administration — including a man whose mother was the spokeswoman for the students who took Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979 — have been arrested in Los Angeles and will be deported, U.S. officials said Saturday.

“ICE arrested Eissa Seyed Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son Seyed Mobin Hashemi in Los Angeles, California,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday. “Eissa Seyed Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, an Iranian regime politician who also acted as a spokesperson during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979.

“ICE law enforcement officers successfully apprehended all three individuals whose presence in the United States posed a clear threat to our national security and foreign policy.

“On September 1, 2014, Hashemi entered the U.S. at the San Francisco International Airport on a F-1 student visa. In 2016, Hashemi, his wife, and son became green card holders. It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America. If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the U.S., the green card will be revoked,” the department continued.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States will not be a safe haven for those who threaten our security or undermine our foreign policy.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also detailed the arrests in a social media post on Saturday morning.

“Masoumeh Ebtekar — also known as ‘Screaming Mary’ — was the spokeswoman for the Islamic terrorists who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days — subjecting them to beatings, starvation, and mock executions,” Rubio wrote.

“In 2014, the Obama administration granted visas to her son and his family to enter the United States. In June 2016, the Obama administration gave them lawful permanent resident status via the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. This week, I terminated their lawful permanent resident status and today, Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending their removal from our country.

“Her family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country,” Rubio added. “America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families — and under the Trump Administration, it never will.”

Hashemi’s mother is Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was Iran’s first female cabinet member since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and third overall. She led the country’s Department of Environment from 1997 to 2005 and from 2013-17, and was also Iran’s vice president for women and family affairs from 2017 to 2021.

More relevant for U.S. officials, however, was her role in the 1979 hostage taking by Iranian revolutionaries, in which 66 hostages were taken when followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two of those hostages were held for 444 days.

Ebtekar served as spokesperson for the hostage takers, and was derisively nicknamed “Sister Mary” and even “Screaming Mary” by some in the American media.

U.S. officials did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the arrests.

Hashemi and his wife were professors at The Chicago School in Los Angeles, CBS2 reported. The school is located at 707 Wilshire Blvd. in the downtown area.

The arrests were announced as peace talks were taking place in Pakistan in an effort to end the war that began when U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran on Feb. 28, citing what they called the regime’s support for attacks on Israel and ongoing efforts to pursue a nuclear weapons program.

Last week, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, the niece of slain Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, and her daughter were also arrested in Los Angeles and set for deportation, according to U.S. officials.