Nieces of Late Iranian Terror Commander Face Deportation

On April 4, the State Department announced that Secretary Marco Rubio had terminated the lawful permanent resident (“LPR” or “green card”) status of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, and that the duo had been taken into DHS custody. Afshar is the niece of Qasem Soleimani, late leader of Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was killed in a January 2020 U.S. airstrike under Trump I. It is a wild story of how asylum has been abused for years in the United States.

A Clunky and Convoluted Section of the INA

LPRs can only be taken into ICE custody and removed if they have done something that would render them removable on one or more of the grounds of deportation in section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

In these cases, it appears Rubio used his authority under section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the INA, which renders deportable any alien “whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

If that clunky legislative language sounds familiar, it’s probably because this was the ground DHS first used to detain (and attempt to deport) Columbia University “activist” Mahmoud Khalil, another green card holder who was taken into custody in March 2025, and whose case remains tied up in the courts.

Having handled countless high-profile cases while at the former INS’s National Security Law Division, I can assure you this charge is rare, because section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) is: (1) hardly ever used; and (2) difficult to apply. Let me explain.

Through reference in the statutory language to a similar national security basis of inadmissibility for arriving aliens in section 212(a)(3)(C) of the INA, the secretary of State cannot direct the deportation of a lawfully admitted alien on section 237(a)(4)(C) grounds “because of the alien's past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States”.

In other words, there is a First Amendment exception that limits Rubio’s use of the national security ground of deportation.

But there is also an exception to that exception, again found in section 212(a)(3)(C) of the INA, which would permit Rubio to overcome that bar if he “personally determines that the alien’s” presence in the United States “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest”.

He’s a busy man, but not too busy to consider these cases personally, apparently.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and Sarinasadat Hosseiny

A federal judge concluded that the national security ground was inapplicable as applied in the Khalil case (prompting DHS to switch to a different deportation ground), but the facts around Afshar and her daughter’s presence in the United States seem a little more clear cut.

As an April 4 DHS tweet explains:

Thus, Afshar and Hosseiny entered the United States as temporary nonimmigrants in 2015, during a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations when the Obama administration was negotiating the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, better known as the “JCPOA” or “the Iran nuclear deal”.

As the Obama State Department explained in January 2016, the JCPOA “ensure[d] Iran's nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful”.

If you want to understand what Obama meant when he noted after his January 2009 inauguration that “elections have consequences”, look no further than that January 2016 statement.

Then-Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to warn that the JCPOA “almost guarantees a war, at some point certainly in our lifetime and maybe before the end of the decade” because Iran would use sanctions relief under that deal to continue its terrorist activities, but the Obama White House was unswayed.

In fact, it would not be surprising if the Obama administration didn’t facilitate the nonimmigrant visas for Afshar and Hosseiny, given that their Uncle Qasem’s “death squads” had at that point cut a swath of terror across occupied Iraq in the wake of the U.S. invasion of that country, triggering the ultimate rise of ISIS.

It’s unclear what Afshar and Hosseiny alleged in their asylum applications, but if I had to guess each claimed that they had publicly disavowed their uncle’s policies and therefore faced IRGC reprisals if they were to ever return to the Islamic Republic.

If that were true, of course, Afshar wouldn’t have gone home, as DHS claims she did on four different occasions, and it wouldn’t explain the source of the funding for the “lavish, vacation-oriented lifestyle” Hosseiny has allegedly enjoyed in the United States.

Nor would it explain the following assertions in the State Department press release on these cases:

While living in the United States, [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 [IRGC], a designated terror organization.

Non-Disclosure Regulation

That DHS referenced the asylum claims in these cases is unusual, because 8 C.F.R. § 208.6 generally bars public disclosure of not only the facts an asylum applicant reveals when seeking such protection, but also that a given individual ever applied for asylum.

No regulation has ever done so much to promote fraud than that one, because it limits the ability of the United States government to check — let alone verify — persecution claims aliens make when applying for asylum.

Or, as Congress noted in the conference report for the REAL ID Act:

Plainly, an alien who is a terrorist could more easily fabricate a claim that his home government believes erroneously that he is a terrorist.

[A] regulation that bars the disclosure of information contained in an asylum application, or even the fact that an alien has applied for asylum, hinders the government’s ability to confirm the veracity of asylum claims, or to obtain evidence that contradicts an alien’s asylum claims.

Immigration judges are, by definition, Americans, and Americans love a redemption story, particularly when it involves the rejection of a high-profile uncle cum thug who uses his authority to cower large populations abroad.

The Case of William Patrick Hitler

That may sound a little specific, but consider the case of William Patrick Hitler, nephew of the German Fuhrer with the same last name, who was born in Liverpool, England.

In January 1939, young Hitler came to the United States with his mother on a lecture tour (“My Uncle Adolf”) at the behest of publisher William Randolph Hearst.

He was still here when “Uncle Adolf” invaded Poland that September, but for whatever reason his request to join the Royal Navy was denied.

Following Pearl Harbor, however, he appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be allowed to join the U.S. Navy, explaining:

All my relatives and friends soon will be marching for freedom and decency under the Stars and Stripes. … I am respectfully submitting this petition to you to enquire as to whether I may be allowed to join them in their struggle against tyranny and oppression? ... As a fugitive from the Gestapo I warned France through the press that Hitler would invade her that year.

That William Hitler was only a “fugitive from the Gestapo” because he had traveled to Germany to ask his uncle for a job (which would have required him to relinquish his British citizenship) was beside the point, and Roosevelt allowed him to enlist where he served with distinction as a pharmacist’s mate in the Pacific.

He attempted to sink into obscurity after the war (changing his name to William Patrick Stuart-Houston), but that he is still remembered is tribute to our interest in such tales.

Like FDR, the immigration judges who heard these claims were probably taken in by stories told by innocent relatives of a malevolent figure, who fled in terror seeking to flee their uncle’s dark shadow and avoid his wrath.

Pro Tip

More disclosures about Afshar and Hosseiny are sure to emerge in coming days, and the usual groups will likely rush to their defense. Here’s a pro tip from an immigration lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, however: If you are a former asylee applying for U.S. citizenship, don’t travel back home — and refrain from referring to your place of refuge as the “Great Satan”.