Federal agents arrested the niece and granddaughter of slain Iranian General Qasem Soleimani over the weekend in Los Angeles after Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated their lawful permanent resident status. Both women are now in ICE custody and face removal from the United States.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and her 25-year-old daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny, were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in and around Los Angeles. The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security announced the action Saturday, framing it as a national-security enforcement measure against foreign nationals linked to Iran's terrorist apparatus.
The arrests mark the second such removal action by the Trump administration in a single week, and they raise a question that should have been asked years ago: How did the niece of the commander of Iran's Quds Force end up with a green card in the first place?
DHS laid out the immigration timeline in blunt terms. Afshar entered the United States in 2015 on a tourist visa. Her daughter arrived the same year on a student visa. Both were granted asylum in 2019 by a judge. Afshar secured a green card in 2021, and Hosseiny received hers in 2023.
But DHS says the asylum claims were built on sand. The department stated that Afshar made at least four trips back to Iran after receiving asylum, travel that, as the Washington Times reported, directly undermined her claim of persecution. An asylum recipient who freely returns to the country she allegedly fled raises an obvious credibility problem. DHS put it plainly: "her trips to Iran illustrate her asylum claims were fraudulent."
A DHS spokesman added a broader warning. "It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America," the spokesman said. "If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the US, the green card will be revoked."
The administration's willingness to act on that principle, revoking green cards already issued, not merely denying new ones, represents a harder enforcement posture than Washington has shown in years. Courts have been gradually clearing the legal path for the administration's broader deportation agenda, and this case tests whether the same momentum extends to permanent residents with alleged terror-regime ties.
The State Department's statement described a woman who lived well in America while cheering on its enemies. Rubio's office said Afshar "promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the 'Great Satan,' and voiced her unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization."
The statement added that "Afshar Soleimani pushed this propaganda for Iran's terrorist regime while enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, as attested to by her frequent posting on her recently deleted Instagram account."
Those Instagram posts, obtained by the California Post and the New York Post before the accounts were scrubbed, painted a vivid picture. Images showed Afshar at a Los Angeles-area firearm range shooting a handgun and an AR-15 rifle. The New York Post reported that Afshar posted messages calling the U.S. the "Great Satan," celebrated attacks on American soldiers, and supported Tehran's threats against Iranian dissidents abroad.
One post, cited by the New York Post, showed Afshar gloating over financial pressure on Iranian expats who opposed the regime. "Taking war reparations from the scum who sold out their homeland is very satisfying," she wrote, adding: "Now, go chase after your money and assets." Another post quoted her writing that "American officials have told the New York Times that Iran is responding more effectively than the Trump administration expected, and has demonstrated a stronger military capability."
None of this was hidden. It was on a public Instagram feed, in English and Farsi, for anyone to see, including, apparently, no one in the federal government until now.
ICE agents moved Saturday. Afshar was spotted outside her two-bedroom residence in Tujunga, a Los Angeles suburb, before being taken into custody. Her daughter, Hosseiny, was arrested while driving with her boyfriend near her home in Hollywood. Afshar's husband has been barred from entering the United States.
Rubio announced the enforcement action on X. "This week, I terminated both Afshar and her daughter's legal status and they are now in ICE custody, pending removal from the United States," he wrote. He added: "The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes."
The Washington Examiner noted that Rubio described Afshar as "an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the 'Great Satan.'" The framing left no ambiguity about the administration's rationale: this was not a routine immigration matter but a statement about who gets to stay.
Newsmax reported that no criminal charges were filed. The action was taken under immigration law, with DHS and ICE carrying out the operation at the State Department's direction. That distinction matters legally, it means the government is using its authority over immigration status rather than pursuing a criminal prosecution.
Qasem Soleimani commanded Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds Force for more than two decades. President Trump ordered a fatal drone strike on Soleimani near the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020, saying the general was planning attacks on American diplomats and soldiers in Iraq. The strike made Soleimani a martyr in Tehran and a household name in American foreign policy.
His niece's presence in the United States, living in Los Angeles, holding a green card, and openly celebrating the regime her uncle served, sits at the intersection of immigration failure and national-security negligence. The asylum system is designed to protect people fleeing persecution. It is not supposed to function as a gateway for relatives of designated-terror-organization commanders to settle in American cities and broadcast regime propaganda from Beverly Hills-adjacent neighborhoods.
National Review reported that the deportation case could face legal challenges, a prospect that would test how far courts are willing to let the executive branch go in revoking permanent residency on national-security grounds. The administration has been building its enforcement authority on multiple fronts, including recent appellate rulings upholding its power to detain illegal immigrants without bond.
The Afshar arrest was the second removal of an Iranian-regime-linked individual by the Trump administration in a single week. Breitbart reported that a physician and faculty member at Emory University in Atlanta, described as the daughter of a top Iranian official, was also ordered to leave the United States along with her husband and barred from ever returning. That case was prompted in part by January protests over "the daughter of a terrorist" working in Emory's cancer research hospital.
The pattern suggests the administration is systematically identifying foreign nationals with ties to Iran's ruling apparatus who have been living in the United States under immigration statuses that, in the government's view, should never have been granted. Whether the courts ultimately sustain these removals will depend on the specific legal authorities invoked, a detail the government has not yet spelled out in full.
That legal ambiguity is one of several open questions. What statutory mechanism did Rubio use to terminate permanent residency? Will Afshar and Hosseiny contest the removal in immigration court? And how many similar cases remain in the pipeline? The administration has signaled it is just getting started, and recent court victories on third-country deportations give it more room to operate.
The most damning detail in this case is not what the Trump administration did this week. It is what the system failed to do for a decade. An immigration judge granted asylum in 2019 to the niece of the commander of a designated foreign terrorist organization. She then traveled back to Iran at least four times. She posted pro-regime propaganda on a public Instagram account. She received a green card in 2021. And nobody flagged it.
The Biden administration issued that green card. The asylum judge approved the claim. The vetting system, whatever it looked like, either missed or ignored a family connection to one of the most prominent military figures in Iranian history. These are not obscure details buried in classified databases. Qasem Soleimani's name was on the front page of every newspaper in America in January 2020. His niece applied for, and received, permanent residency the following year.
Accountability in cases like these rarely runs downstream to the officials who approved the paperwork. It should. The immigration system's credibility depends on the idea that someone is actually reading the applications, checking the names, and asking obvious questions. In this case, the obvious question, "Is the applicant related to a major general in the IRGC?", apparently went unasked, or was asked and ignored.
Meanwhile, the broader legal landscape around immigration enforcement continues to shift. Courts have been wrestling with fast-moving disputes over executive authority, and the Afshar case may add another front to that fight.
A green card is a privilege, not a right. The government said so itself. The question is why it took this long for anyone to act like it.
