In the midst of the U.S./Israeli war on Iran, the plight of Iranian immigrants here in the U.S. is not receiving the attention it deserves. We know that, as of December 2025, there were over 577 Iranians in ICE detention centers and there have been three flights from the U.S. sending back many Iranian immigrants who were mostly asylum seekers. The oldest person detained was 77 at the time of the arrest and the youngest one was just 5 years old.
While we don’t have any data from 2026, we know that during the June 2025 12 Day War, ICE arrested over 200 Iranians and, later in July 2025, 80 Iranians were detained, taking the total of June and July 2025 detentions to over 300. This is alarming since up to the writing of this editorial we were still in a cease fire of a war that had been going on for over three months. Is last year’s detention pattern during the war an indication of hundreds more Iranians being detained? I certainly hope not.
Among the detained in 2025, there were seven Green Card holders who were arrested on the claims of previous criminal records. Since then, there have been arrests of other Iranian Green Card holders based on familial connections to the officials of Islamic Republic. The idea of detaining people who received their Green Cards legally—yet have some familial connection to officials of the Islamic Republic—goes against the principle of equal protection by law both in Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Regardless, such actions open the door to error as we’ve already seen happen in the case of mother and daughter Green Card holders detained in California for being relatives of the late IRGC general Ghasem Soleymani. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their Green Cards and they are still in custody while an investigation by Dropsite News shows that they are not related to the IRGC general and one of them was imprisoned by the Islamic Republic for participating in anti-government demonstrations.
The other major issue that is hurting our community is the plight of Iranian F-1 students who are near graduation. The President of the United States (POTUS) has issued a 39-country ban that has effectively ended the possibility of receiving Practical Training (PT) after graduation. PT, a process that has been in place for decades, makes it possible for F-1 student visa holders to pursue employment in their field of study in the U.S. after graduation. The current situation has put them in a bind: graduate and you have to go back to Iran. There are perhaps hundreds (if not thousands) of Iranian students currently in the U.S. who are facing this problem.
There are silver linings, if anyone could even call them as such. First, there is a halt to deportation flights due to the war. Second, most of the legal challenges by many of the detainees were successful, resulting in them being freed. Third, the administration seems to be on the defensive and, with midterms on the horizon, it doesn’t want any more bad publicity. This is evidenced by the retreat on the mandatory order for Green Card applicants who are already in the U.S. to leave the country and a roll back of the widely-reported H1B (employment) visa $100K price tag. Within days after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a memo that Green Card applicants should go back to their country of birth, the New York Times reported that there was no policy change and USCIS was just repeating an old policy that the applicants going back to their country of birth was at the discretion of the immigration officer in charge. Also, the H1B work visas change in policy was clarified to only apply to applicants who are physically outside the United States and then, on June 8, a federal judge completely rejected (voided) the policy.
There are many lawsuits against the 39 country ban by the POTUS. In fact, on June 5, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that such a policy is discrimination based on place of birth and the federal government should resume processing the immigration cases of citizens of those 39 countries (with Iran being one of them). In the same ruling, the judge also ruled that the U.S. should resume processing political asylum seekers with broad implications affecting many countries, including Iran. Of course, the administration will either ignore this ruling or ask for a stay from higher courts. Regardless, this is a positive development that makes a case for challenging the detentions and rejection of applications at individual levels.
All the above developments are a clear indication that in spite of all the negative news on Iranian immigrants in the U.S., this is a time that legal action and unity of our community on immigration issues may actually work. The tide might be changing. We need to unite in our community and with other immigrant communities to defend the human rights of members of our community, from documented to detained.
