'Bloodline punishment': Iranian family faces ongoing punitive ICE detention

An Iranian family, whose relative was once a prominent politician in Iran, finds themselves caught in an indefinite and punitive hold by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for over 130 days. The family's three members - a mother, her 16-year-old son, and a husband - are stripped of their green cards after a campaign targeting their political connections.

Maryam Tahmasebi, a Los Angeles-based Iranian academic, penned a letter to The Nation describing the arrest of her husband, son, and herself as a form of "bloodline punishment," as an online campaign targeted her husband's late father, a former Iranian politician. None of the three family members possess any criminal history. The government's decision to punish the family stems from the fact that they are Iranians with parents who had lived and worked in Iran during a 1979 crisis that involved the American embassy's hostage-taking.

Maryam Tahmasebi and her son were arrested just days apart, both while en route to the son's school. Despite the family's request to be reunited, they were told that family separation is government policy. The family's attorney, Tala Alfoqaha, stated that the government's refusal to allow voluntary departure indicates that the detention is purely punitive.

The DHS described the family as individuals whose presence in the U.S. posed a clear threat to national security, comparable to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As of December, at least 577 Iranian nationals were held in ICE detention facilities, reflecting ongoing political retaliation following the U.S.'s war on Iran.