Three prominent Iranians who had been granted permanent legal status to live in the United States by the Obama administration \u2014 including a man whose mother was the spokeswoman for the students who took Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979 \u2014 have been arrested in Los Angeles and will be deported, U.S. officials said Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE arrested Eissa Seyed Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son Seyed Mobin Hashemi in Los Angeles, California,\u201d the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday. \u201cEissa 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 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,\u201d the department continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder President Trump\u2019s leadership, the United States will not be a safe haven for those who threaten our security or undermine our foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also detailed the arrests in a social media post on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasoumeh Ebtekar \u2014 also known as \u2018Screaming Mary\u2019 \u2014 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 \u2014 subjecting them to beatings, starvation, and mock executions,\u201d Rubio wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country,\u201d Rubio added. \u201cAmerica can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families \u2014 and under the Trump Administration, it never will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hashemi\u2019s mother is Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was Iran\u2019s first female cabinet member since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and third overall. She led the country\u2019s Department of Environment from 1997 to 2005 and from 2013-17, and was also Iran\u2019s vice president for women and family affairs from 2017 to 2021.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ebtekar served as spokesperson for the hostage takers, and was derisively nicknamed \u201cSister Mary\u201d and even \u201cScreaming Mary\u201d by some in the American media.<\/p>\n
U.S. officials did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the arrests.<\/p>\n