In a recent development that escalates long-running tensions between the United States and Iran, two family members of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani have been taken into federal custody in the U.S. following the cancellation of their permanent residency status. A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed on Saturday that Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, Soleimani’s niece, and her daughter (the general’s grandniece) were arrested by federal agents after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status. The pair are currently being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pending further immigration processing.
To contextualize the event, Qassem Soleimani was one of Iran’s most high-profile military figures. He took command of the Quds Force, an elite overseas operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in 1997, after being appointed by then-IRGC commander-in-chief Yahya Rahim Safavi. Founded in the early 1980s, the Quds Force is tasked with carrying out Iran’s military and intelligence operations across the Middle East and beyond. In January 2020, Soleimani was killed in a targeted U.S. drone strike on his convoy in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The attack also claimed the life of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), alongside several other senior PMF officials.
In its official statement justifying the arrests and revocation, the State Department framed Hamideh Soleimani Afshar as a vocal public backer of what it terms Iran’s “totalitarian, terrorist regime.” According to the department, her own social media posts and independent press reporting confirm she has publicly praised Mojtaba Khamenei, a leading figure within Iran’s leadership, and repeatedly referred to the U.S. as the “Great Satan.” The statement added that Afshar’s husband has already been barred from entering the United States entirely.
This action is part of a broader crackdown on relatives of deceased senior Iranian officials that the U.S. has ties to adversarial actions against. The department also revealed that the daughter and son-in-law of Ali Larijani, a slain Iranian security chief, have similarly had their U.S. legal status revoked. Unlike the Soleimani relatives, the pair have already left the country and are permanently banned from re-entering the U.S. in the future. Larijani, who served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting Iranian officials in Syria back in March 2025.
This reporting was originally published by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet specializing in original coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs connected to the region.