Mandonna After marrying a U.S. citizen and raising their daughter, Donna Kashanian spent 47 years in the United States. According to her family, she was handcuffed and taken away by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel when she was gardening in her New Orleans home’s yard.
Fearing reprisals for her father’s support of the U.S.-backed shah, Kashanian submitted an asylum application after arriving in 1978 on a student visa. She lost her bid, but according to her husband and daughter, she was permitted to stay with them as long as she made frequent appearances at immigration offices. When she checked in during Hurricane Katrina from South Carolina, she did as she was told. While her family looks for information, she is currently being held at an immigration detention facility in Basile, Louisiana.
Immigration officials are also detaining other Iranians who have lived in the US for decades. Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not disclose the number of those detained, American military actions against Iran have stoked concerns that more may follow.
Naturally, a certain amount of vigilance is necessary, but it appears that ICE has essentially issued an order to apprehend as many Iranians as possible, regardless of whether they pose a threat, and then detain and deport them. This is extremely alarming, according to Ryan Costello, policy director of the advocacy group National Iranian American Council.
An email requesting comment on Kashanian’s case was not quickly answered by Homeland Security, although they have been promoting Iranian arrests. At least 11 Iranians were arrested for immigration infractions over the weekend of the U.S. missile strikes, according to the government.Without providing further details, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated that it had detained seven Iranians at a home in the Los Angeles region that has been used frequently to house terrorist-affiliated illegal immigrants.
Regarding the 11 arrests, spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin stated that the department “has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country, came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs or otherwise.” She provided no proof of radical or terrorist affiliations. She made reference to President Joe Biden’s increased legal channels to entrance in her remark on parole programs, which were shut down by his successor, Donald Trump.
Kashanian’s husband, Russell Milne, stated that his wife poses no threat. He clarified that circumstances in her early life hindered her asylum application. Her previous marriage was deemed fake by a judge.
However, Kashanian, 64, established a life in Louisiana over forty years. She was a student bartending in the late 1980s when the couple first met. After being married, they had a daughter. She was a grandmother figure to the kids next door, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and made Persian culinary videos for YouTube.
Milne claimed that although the family was always afraid of deportation, his wife fulfilled all of the demands placed on her.
“She’s fulfilling her responsibilities,” Milne remarked. “She is old enough to retire. She poses no threat. Who takes a granny in?
Due to strained diplomatic ties with the United States, Iranians have been crossing the border illegally for years, particularly since 2021, but they have had little chance of being sent back to their native nations. It doesn’t appear to be the situation anymore.
In an effort to get around diplomatic obstacles with governments who refuse to repatriate their citizens, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, including Iranians, to nations other than their own. Countries like El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama have recalled noncitizens from the United States during Trump’s second term.
After the judges permitted deportations to nations other than those from which the noncitizens originated, the administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to approve several deportations to South Sudan, a war-torn nation with which it has no diplomatic ties.
The latest publicly available statistics shows that between October 2021 and November 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 1,700 Iranians along the Mexican border. According to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent statistics reports, around 600 Iranians overstayed their visas during the 12-month period ending in September 2023 as tourists, business or exchange travelers, and students.
This month, the United States imposed a travel restriction on 12 nations, including Iran. Deportation arrests by ICE are increasing, which some fear will be another setback.
This week, while driving to the gym in Oregon, an Iranian guy was arrested by immigration officials. His lawyer, Michael Purcell, submitted court filings stating that he was pulled up around two weeks before to his scheduled check-in at ICE offices in Portland.
His wife and two children are U.S. citizens, and the man, who has been in the country for more than 20 years, is known in court documents as S.F.
In the early 2000s, S.F. filed for asylum in the United States; however, in 2002, his application was turned down. According to court documents, despite the failure of his appeal, the authorities did not deport him and he remained in the nation for decades.
Purcell said in his petition that S.F. would be in far greater danger of persecution if he were deported because of the altered circumstances in Iran. A de facto state of war has been established between the United States and Iran as a result of the recent American bombing of Iranian nuclear installations.
According to him, S.F.’s lengthy stay in the United States, his conversion to Christianity, and the fact that his wife and kids are citizens of the United States significantly raise the likelihood that he will be imprisoned, tortured, or put to death in Iran.
Likewise, Kashanian’s daughter expressed concern about her mother’s future.
According to Kaitlynn Milne, she made an effort to do everything correctly.
