State Dept revoked green cards of Ebtekar's son's family, ICE detained them on kinship alone

On Saturday, April 11, 2026, the U.S. Department of State announced it had terminated the lawful permanent resident status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their 16-year-old son, Los Angeles-area residents, and federal agents took the family into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a media note and public statements, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the family's status was terminated because Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, a former Iranian vice president who, as a 19-year-old student in 1979, served as the English-language spokeswoman for the militants who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held American hostages for 444 days. Neither Rubio's statements nor the State Department release alleged any crime or hostile act by Hashemi, Tahmasebi, or their son; the family had held lawful permanent residency since June 2016 after entering the United States on visas issued in 2014. The action followed earlier New York Post reporting on the family's Los Angeles lifestyle and a public pressure campaign by right-wing activists.

The case followed the same mechanism the State Department used one week earlier against Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, whose claimed kinship to Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was later documented as false by an independent investigation, though no reporting here disputes that Hashemi is in fact Ebtekar's son. In both cases, the government's stated basis for stripping status and detaining lawful permanent residents was a public claim of familial connection to a disfavored Iranian figure, not an individualized finding of wrongdoing by the people detained. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson later said the family's presence in the United States posed "a clear threat to our national security and foreign policy," without identifying conduct by any of the three.

Updates

2026-05-19 — Federal judge temporarily barred family's deportation pending habeas challenge [5]

More than five weeks into their detention, attorneys for Hashemi, Tahmasebi, and their son filed petitions in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, including habeas corpus petitions challenging the legality of their continued detention. A federal judge temporarily barred the government from deporting the family while those petitions are litigated.

2026-07-09 — DHS rejected family's bid for voluntary departure to Türkiye [4]

More than three months into their detention at the Dilley, Texas ICE facility, attorneys for Hashemi, Tahmasebi, and their son sought voluntary departure at their own expense to Türkiye, citing fear of persecution if returned to Iran. Court filings reviewed by Newsweek show the Department of Homeland Security declined the proposed voluntary-departure order in writing following a July 1, 2026 immigration court hearing, instead offering a stipulated order of removal paired with continued detention. As of the filings, the family remained in custody, with Hashemi held separately from his wife and son.