US detains Iranian academic family over 1979 hostage crisis ties through marriage

Maryam Tahmasebi is a psychology professor in Los Angeles. Her husband, Seyed Eissa Hashemi, works in academia. Their teenage son was in school. All three held green cards—permanent resident status they had earned legally, entering the United States in 2014 and becoming residents in 2016. In April, immigration agents detained all three of them.

The reason given was not something any of them had done. It was who Hashemi's mother was. Masoumeh Ebtekar had been a spokesperson for the students who occupied the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, translating their statements to English-language media. She became known as "Screaming Mary" for her voice on those broadcasts. The hostage crisis lasted 444 days. Fifty-two Americans were held captive. Ebtekar later held several positions in the Iranian government, though she had not served in any official role since 2021.

Hashemi was born after the crisis ended. He had no role in it. Neither did Tahmasebi, who is not even related by blood to Ebtekar. Yet in July 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the family's green cards would be revoked. The announcement offered no evidence that any of them posed a security threat. It named no crime. It presented no wrongdoing on their part. The State Department later declined to explain its reasoning, citing classified information.

Tahmasebi wrote about the experience from inside a detention facility in Dilley, Texas, where she and her son remain held. Her husband is in a separate facility in Pearsall, also in South Texas. She described the conditions as deteriorating their physical and mental health in ways that might not heal for years. She called it "bloodline punishment"—being held accountable for the actions of a relative, nearly fifty years in the past, before she was even born.

The family's lawyers challenged the detention and filed for release. A federal judge temporarily blocked their deportation. Tahmasebi and Hashemi then asked to leave voluntarily—to simply depart the country and end the ordeal. The Department of Homeland Security refused. In July, DHS declined their request for voluntary departure. A government attorney suggested instead a "stipulated removal," in which they would waive their right to a hearing and accept deportation. When asked about this, DHS responded that "being in detention is a choice" and encouraged them to use a smartphone app to arrange their own departure.

Maria Kari, part of their legal team, told the BBC that no US government agency has charged the family under any national security law. "If the government had any evidence that this family threatened national security, it has had several opportunities to say so but the government has not," she said. The State Department spokesman declined to specify what threat the family posed, saying only that the government retained the right to revoke status for those who "pose a threat to the national security interests of the US."

This case is not isolated. The US government has also terminated the legal status of two Iranian women it initially identified as relatives of Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC general killed in a 2020 US strike. Soleimani's family later denied the women were related to him, and reporting has cast doubt on the government's identification. The State Department also revoked status for the daughter of Ali Larijani, a former Iranian security official. These actions accelerated as US hostilities with Iran escalated in 2026. At the same time, diaspora activists had begun identifying relatives of Iranian officials living abroad and campaigning to revoke their legal status. An online petition in January called for Hashemi's deportation. Within weeks, conservative outlets reported from outside his home. Days later, Rubio announced the revocation.

Tahmasebi wrote that she came to America to build a life defined by her own actions, not anyone else's. "But now our lives are being upended for something someone else did nearly 50 years ago," she wrote. Four months into detention, with no charges filed and no security evidence presented, the family remains in separate facilities in Texas, waiting for a hearing that may never come.