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US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani after the Trump administration\u2019s top diplomat, Marco Rubio<\/a>, revoked their lawful permanent resident status, officials said on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cHamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement,\u201d or ICE, the state department said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n In his own statement<\/a> on social media, Rubio, the US secretary of state, confirmed that the mother-daughter pair are \u201cpending removal\u201d from the US, a development that came after the US and Israeli militaries began waging war on Iran in late February, in part citing an Iranian history of terrorism sponsorship.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s development with respect to Soleimani Afshar also came as the Trump administration<\/a> has sought to revoke the legal immigration statuses of people it has determined to be aligned with enemies of the US.<\/p>\n Rubio\u2019s statement said that the Trump administration \u201cwill not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes\u201d.<\/p>\n Officials allege that Soleimani Afshar celebrated military strikes against American personnel and praised Iran\u2019s new supreme leader after the US and Israel killed his predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, in a large-scale air attack at the beginning of the war. They also accused her of labeling the US the \u201cGreat Satan\u201d.<\/p>\n The statement about Soleimani Afshar further claims she voiced \u201cunflinching support\u201d for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) \u2013 all while maintaining a \u201clavish\u201d lifestyle in Los Angeles<\/a>, with US officials pointing at her Instagram account as evidence.<\/p>\n In addition to the revocation of legal permanent resident \u2013 or green card \u2013 status for Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, her husband has also been formally prohibited from entering the US, officials said.<\/p>\n The maneuvers announced on Saturday followed a separate recent move by Rubio to terminate the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani \u2013 daughter of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran\u2019s supreme national security council \u2013 and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi have since departed the US and are under a permanent entry ban, according to the state department.<\/p>\n Soleimani Afshar\u2019s father \u2013 whose name is also spelled Quassem Suleimani \u2013 was killed<\/a> in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 at age 62 during Donald Trump\u2019s first presidency. He was widely considered to be the most powerful man in Iran at the time after Khamenei, and the country\u2019s most influential military figure.<\/p>\n His importance was connected to his role commanding the elite Quds (Jerusalem) force of the IRGC, the strongest state security entity in the theocratic state of Iran.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s senior officials and military commanders had vowed to avenge Suleimani\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n In early 2023, Iran\u2019s president at the time, Ebrahim Raisi, told<\/a> an audience in the capital of Tehran: \u201cWe have not and will not forget the blood of martyr Soleimani.\u201d<\/p>\n Raisi, who died in a 2024 helicopter crash, also said: \u201cThe Americans must know that revenge for martyr Soleimani\u2019s blood is certain, and the murderers and perpetrators will have no easy sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n