Qassem Soleimani in 2016. Photograph: APView image in fullscreenQassem Soleimani in 2016. Photograph: APUS authorities arrest relatives of late Iranian military commander who were living in Los AngelesState department said niece and grandniece of Qassem Soleimani, killed in 2020 US drone strike, celebrated attacks against US soldiers
US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani after the Trump administration’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, revoked their lawful permanent resident status, officials said on Saturday.
“Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” or ICE, the state department said in a statement.
In his own statement on social media, Rubio, the US secretary of state, confirmed that the mother-daughter pair are “pending removal” from the US, a development that came after the US and Israeli militaries began waging war on Iran in late February, in part citing an Iranian history of terrorism sponsorship.
Saturday’s development with respect to Soleimani Afshar also came as the Trump administration has sought to revoke the legal immigration statuses of people it has determined to be aligned with enemies of the US.
Rubio’s statement said that the Trump administration “will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes”.
Officials allege that Soleimani Afshar celebrated military strikes against American personnel and praised Iran’s new supreme leader after the US and Israel killed his predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a large-scale air attack at the beginning of the war. They also accused her of labeling the US the “Great Satan”.
The statement about Soleimani Afshar further claims she voiced “unflinching support” for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – all while maintaining a “lavish” lifestyle in Los Angeles, with US officials pointing at her Instagram account as evidence.
In addition to the revocation of legal permanent resident – or green card – status for Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, her husband has also been formally prohibited from entering the US, officials said.
The maneuvers announced on Saturday followed a separate recent move by Rubio to terminate the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani – daughter of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council – and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi have since departed the US and are under a permanent entry ban, according to the state department.
Soleimani Afshar’s father – whose name is also spelled Quassem Suleimani – was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 at age 62 during Donald Trump’s first presidency. He was widely considered to be the most powerful man in Iran at the time after Khamenei, and the country’s most influential military figure.
His importance was connected to his role commanding the elite Quds (Jerusalem) force of the IRGC, the strongest state security entity in the theocratic state of Iran.
Iran’s senior officials and military commanders had vowed to avenge Suleimani’s killing.
In early 2023, Iran’s president at the time, Ebrahim Raisi, told an audience in the capital of Tehran: “We have not and will not forget the blood of martyr Soleimani.”
Raisi, who died in a 2024 helicopter crash, also said: “The Americans must know that revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood is certain, and the murderers and perpetrators will have no easy sleep.”
