The United States has arrested and is seeking to deport two relatives of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander General Qasem Soleimani, marking a significant escalation in the US confrontation with Iran during the ongoing war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Saturday that he had revoked the US permanent resident status of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar — Soleimani’s niece — and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny, the grand-niece of the deceased IRGC commander. Both women were taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In a post on social media, Rubio said the women were “green card holders living lavishly in the United States” and had been “outspoken supporters of the totalitarian, terrorist regime in Iran.”
Immigration History Under Scrutiny
According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Soleimani Afshar entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2015 and was granted asylum in 2019, becoming a green card holder in 2021. Hosseiny arrived on a student visa in 2015, received asylum in 2019, and obtained a green card in 2023.
When Soleimani Afshar filed a naturalisation application in 2025, she disclosed that she had travelled to Iran four times since receiving her green card. The DHS cited these trips as evidence that her original asylum claims were fraudulent.
“Her trips to Iran illustrate her asylum claims were fraudulent,” the DHS said in a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
Rubio’s state department statement said Soleimani Afshar had promoted “Iranian regime propaganda” on her social media accounts. Her husband has also been barred from entering the United States, Rubio said, though he did not name the individual.
Family Denies Connection
Narjes Soleimani, the daughter of the late General Qasem Soleimani, issued a statement rejecting the US government’s claims.
“The individuals arrested in the US have no connection whatsoever to Martyr Soleimani and the claims made by the US State Department are false,” she said.
She added that the United States had “become so weak and insignificant” and was “fabricating lies against a great figure.”
Trump: Soleimani Was ‘Evil Genius’
Speaking to reporters, President Trump offered a blunt assessment of the Soleimani legacy while defending the arrests.
“I killed Gen Qasem Soleimani in my first term,” Trump said. “He was an evil genius, brilliant person, a horrible human being however, the father of the roadside bomb, and he lived just horrible, what he did.”
Trump suggested Iran would be in a weaker position militarily because of Soleimani’s death. “He was perhaps in a far better, stronger position in the war if he was still alive,” the president said.
General Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia. The strike, personally ordered by Trump, marked a dramatic escalation in US-Iran tensions and triggered Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on US bases in Iraq.
Soleimani commanded the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, responsible for orchestrating Iranian military operations and proxy forces across the Middle East, from Iraq and Syria to Yemen and Lebanon.
