US state department revokes green cards of three Iranian nationals it links to regime | Trump administration
U.S. federal agents arrested three Iranian citizens, including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, after the U.S. State Department terminated their green cards, the department said Saturday.
State Department officials have revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the Iranian regime’s spokesman during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The State Department also revoked the green card (or legal permanent resident) status of Hashemi’s wife and son.
One expressionThe State Department referred to Hashemi’s mother as “Screaming Mary” and said she was “famous for her role as a leading propagandist for violent Islamists who perpetrated the hostage crisis in Iran.”
Hashemi entered the United States on a visa in 2014 and eventually gained lawful permanent resident status in 2016 through the diversity immigrant visa program, according to the State Department. The Trump administration has since ended the diversity visa program, the state department said.
“The Trump administration will never allow America to host foreign nationals affiliated with anti-American terrorist regimes,” the State Department said in a statement.
The arrests followed a series of similar green card revocations against people the State Department deemed to have ties to Iran’s current or former government; The United States and Israel have been waging war against Iran since the end of February.
Federal agents arrested Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, the niece of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States in 2020, and her daughter in early April. US officials have accused Soleimani Afshar of being an outspoken supporter of Iran and celebrating military strikes against US personnel while living a “lavish” lifestyle in Los Angeles.
The State Department also recently revoked the green card status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of former Iranian national security council secretary Ali Larijani, and her husband.
Washington DC and Tehran reached a two-week ceasefire agreement on Tuesday.
Although Iran said it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a passage through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes, Donald Trump accused the Iranian government of doing a “very bad job” by allowing oil to pass through the strait. “This is not the agreement between us!” the president wrote on social media on Thursday.
US vice president JD Vance was sent to Islamabad to mediate peace talks over the weekend, but Iran’s leadership has said it will not participate until Israel agrees to stop bombing Lebanon. On Friday, officials from Israel and Lebanon agreed to meet in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to discuss their respective ceasefires.
