The US State Department said on Saturday that action had been taken against 1979 Iran hostage crisis spokesperson Masoumeh Ebtekar’s son Seyed Eissa Hashemi, a psychology teacher based in the Los Angeles area, along with his wife and son, all Iranian-born lawful permanent residents of the United States.
In a statement issued as talks to end the conflict with Iran were beginning in Pakistan’s Islamabad, the department said the family had been taken into custody by immigration authorities and is set to be deported.
‘America can never become home for anti-American terrorists’
“Masoumeh Ebtekar – also known as “Screaming Mary” – was the spokeswoman for the Islamic terrorists who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostage for 444 days – subjecting them to beatings, starvation, and mock executions,” United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
He further stated, “In 2014, the Administration granted visas to her son and his family to enter the United States. In June 2016, the Obama Administration gave them lawful permanent resident status via the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.”
said that her family should not have been permitted to benefit from the privilege of living in the United States, adding that the country cannot serve as a home for individuals he described as “anti-American terrorists or their families”, and asserting that this would not be allowed under the Trump administration.
“Her family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country. America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families – and under the Trump Administration, it never will,” Rubio said.
The described Ebtekar’s role as ”the leading propagandist for the violent Islamists who perpetrated the Iran hostage crisis”.
“As the lead spokesperson and media intermediary for the hostage-takers, Ebtekar, often referred to in the Western media as “Screaming Mary,” “Sister Mary,” “Tehran Mary,” or simply “Mary,” crafted propaganda falsely showing the humane treatment of the hostages, arranging staged interviews in which the American hostages were pressured to describe their treatment in positive terms – even as they were being held in solitary confinement, blindfolded and starved, and subjected to physical and psychological terror, including beatings and mock executions,” it added.
The State Department said that Ebtekar married one of the individuals involved in the hostage-taking and later rose to senior positions within Iran’s leadership, serving as a vice president between 2017 and 2021.
It further said that Hashemi, Tahmasebi and their son entered the United States in 2014 on visas issued during the Obama administration, and were granted lawful permanent resident status in June 2016 through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, just months after the IRGC detained US Navy personnel. The department also noted that the Trump administration has since suspended the issuance of new diversity visas.
The State Department said that last week Secretary Rubio revoked the legal status of the niece and grandniece of former IRGC Major General Qasem Soleimani. It noted that Hamideh Afshar Soleimani and her daughter are currently in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The department stated Rubio terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of former Iranian official Ali Larijani, along with her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. It added that both have since left the United States and are barred from re-entering the country.
