LOS ANGELES — Two Los Angeles-based relatives of a deceased Iranian leader were arrested by immigration agents after one of them extolled Iranian leadership and denigrated the United States and both repeatedly posted images and videos depicting a decidedly Western lifestyle, according to federal authorities and screenshots of the two women’s social media accounts.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Friday and had their green cards revoked, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement over the weekend, citing in particular Afshar’s “outspoken” support of the “totalitarian, terrorist regime in Iran.”
Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are the niece and grand-niece, respectively, of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a drone strike launched in the last days of President Donald Trump’s first term, Rubio said. The general’s daughter has disputed the family connection, according to Iranian media, which has quoted a statement attributed to her saying that the two women bear no relation to the general and that the State Department’s claims are a “lie.”
Soleimani Afshar’s posts on Instagram and Twitter, captured and republished by numerous news outlets, point to at least the appearance of a life of luxury. Soleimani Afshar regularly published images and videos of herself in what appear to be designer clothes, engaging in activities associated with wealth, including riding in a Hummer and posing for glamour shots in short dresses. Her daughter posted photos in a similar, though at times more sexually provocative, vein.
None of the social media accounts appeared to be active, or their old posts accessible, as of Monday afternoon.
The irony was not lost on some social media denizens who blasted Soleimani Afshar’s purported support for a regime that restricts women from showing so much as hair in public while she showed that and more on social media.
“She hates America,” one user commented on an Instagram post about Soleimani Afshar and Hosseiny’s arrests. “I can’t wait to see what she wears back home.”
A Los Angeles man who said he met Soleimani Afshar through a mutual acquaintance lauded her arrest, saying he had long believed that Soleimani Afshar and her daughter “do not deserve to live in the U.S.” because of Soleimani Afshar’s pro-Iranian statements on social media.
“They don’t like it in America — they shouldn’t be here,” Maziar Aflaki told The Times in an interview, making clear he is a critic of the current Iranian regime.
Aflaki said Soleimani Afshar had called him about a week ago asking for advice because the FBI had contacted her with questions about where she lived. He also said Soleimani Afshar had previously shown him photos of her next to high-ranking people in the Iranian military, stating that one of them was her uncle.
Rubio said in the statement that, while in the U.S., Soleimani 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.” She did all this, he continued, “while enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, as attested to by her frequent posting on her recently deleted Instagram account.”
Rubio added: “The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.”
Soleimani Afshar came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and was granted asylum in 2019 and got her green card in 2021, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis previously said. Since then, she traveled to Iran four times, disclosing the information in her application last year to become a citizen, Bis said. Hosseiny came to the U.S. on a student visa and was also granted asylum in 2019, then got her green card in 2023, Bis said.
Soleimani Afshar’s trips to Iran demonstrated her claims to need asylum in Iran were “fraudulent,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a statement on X.
Soleimani Afshar and Hosseiny are being held in an ICE facility in Pearsall, Texas, according to a searchable database of detainees.
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