OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
1:30 PM – Saturday, April 4, 2026
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the green cards of two of deceased Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Qasem Soleimani’s relatives living in the U.S., allowing them to be arrested by federal immigration enforcement officers.
“Until recently, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were green card holders living lavishly in the United States,” Rubio stated on X Saturday, identifying Soleimani’s niece and grandniece.
According to Rubio, Soleimani Afshar is “an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the ‘Great Satan.’”
The two relatives were taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on Friday in Los Angeles, where they had been living.
“This week, I terminated both Afshar and her daughter’s legal status and they are now in ICE custody, pending removal from the United States,” Rubio announced. “The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.”
Officials claim that Soleimani Afshar had celebrated military strikes against the U.S. during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. She also allegedly praised Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, after his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli strike on February 28th.
According to the State Department’s news release on Saturday, while living in the U.S., she voiced “unflinching support” for the IRGC, a designated terrorist organization, and pushed its propaganda.
The department added that Soleimani Afshar’s husband “has also been barred from entering the United States.”
The secretary also recently 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. Both individuals have since exited the country and are not permitted reentry.
Soleimani was responsible for Iran’s overseas military and intelligence operations until he was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020, when he was 62 years old. Trump administration officials at the time said that he was actively plotting attacks against U.S. personnel and interests in the Middle East and the strike was intended to quash those plans.
Soleimani supported armed groups across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and the U.S. considered him responsible for attacks that killed American troops in the Iraq War.
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