The Trump administration announced on Saturday the arrests of two Los Angeles-based relatives of a high-ranking member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that federal authorities detained Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Friday. Soleimani is the niece of Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who led Iran’s Quds Force, an elite branch of the Iranian military responsible for the country’s foreign operations.
Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny, were living a “lavish lifestyle” in Los Angeles, according to Rubio.
“While living in the United States, she 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 secretary of State’s office said in a news release.
“The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes,” Rubio said in a post on X.
Soleimani Afshar and Hosseiny had their lawful permanent resident status in the United States revoked, Rubio said. Soleimani Afshar’s husband was also barred from entering the country.
Soleimani Afshar came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and was granted asylum in 2019, according to Department of Homeland Security Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. Soleimani Afshar became a green card holder in 2021 under the Biden administration, Bis said.
Since the green card was issued, she has traveled to Iran four times, Bis said. Hosseiny entered the U.S. on a student visa and was granted asylum in 2019. She became a green card holder in 2023, according to Bis.
Suleimani was killed in a U.S. airstrike on a Baghdad airport in January 2020, during President Trump’s first term. He led the Quds Force from 1998 until his death.
At the time, the Pentagon said that Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack U.S. military personnel and diplomats in the Middle East.
Suleimani was powerful and viewed as a national hero in Iran, and his mythical status grew even more in death.
The arrests were the latest in a string of relatives of Iranian officials in the U.S. targeted by Rubio.
The secretary of State said he “terminated the legal status” of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Larijani, and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi.
Rubio said both were no longer in the United States.
