US Revokes Green Card of Iranian Whose Mother Was Involved in 1979 Hostage Crisis

Three Iranian nationals with ties to the Iranian regime were detained this week after the U.S. government ended their lawful permanent resident statuses.

Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son are in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) until they are removed from the United States, according to the U.S. State Department.

Eissa Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified as “Screaming Mary.” Rubio also said she was the spokeswoman for the Islamic terrorists who took American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held them for 444 days. Rubio said on X that during their captivity, the hostages were starved, beaten, and subjected to mock executions.

“Her family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country,” Rubio said in a post on X. “America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families—and under the Trump Administration, it never will.”

The State Department said that Ebtekar “crafted propaganda” that falsely showed that the American hostages were being treated humanely and that the hostages were pressured to say they were not being abused.

Ebtekar eventually married one of the hostage takers and rose in the senior leadership of Iran’s revolutionary regime, according to the State Department.

Hashemi, Tahmasebi, and their son came to the United States in 2014 on visas issued by the Obama administration. The three Iranians were granted lawful permanent resident status in June 2016, just months after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two U.S. Navy vessels and held 10 American sailors captive.

Rubio has also terminated the legal status of other relatives of people with ties to the Iranian regime.

Last week, Rubio ended the legal status of the niece and grandniece of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by the U.S. government in September 2020.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were taken into custody by ICE on April 4. Afshar was accused of promoting Iranian regime propaganda, celebrating attacks against the U.S. military, and denouncing America as the “Great Satan” while living in the United States.

Rubio also terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Ardeshir-Larijani is the daughter of Ali Larijani, former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi are no longer in the United States and are barred from future entry, according to the State Department.

“Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani is the daughter of Ali Larijani, a terrorist Iranian leader responsible for massacring thousands of Iranians and killing Americans,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said in a post on X. “These Iranian elites linked to IRGC terrorists have no place in the United States, so I took action.”