Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, the 47-year-old niece of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani, called a former romantic interest from an ICE detention facility in Pearsall, Texas, on Monday. The man, a 68-year-old Los Angeles retiree named Maziar Aflaki, declined to accept the call.

The rejected phone call is the latest chapter in a case that has drawn attention to how individuals with direct family ties to one of Iran's most powerful military figures obtained asylum, green cards, and a comfortable life in Southern California, only to have it all unravel when federal authorities took a closer look.

Afshar and her 25-year-old daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny, were detained at Afshar's home in Tujunga on April 3, the New York Post reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the pair's U.S. permanent resident status over alleged ties to the Iranian regime, and both are now in ICE custody.

Green cards revoked, asylum claims called fraudulent

The State Department did not mince words. Officials said Afshar was an "outspoken supporter of the totalitarian, terrorist regime in Iran" and had promoted "Iranian regime propaganda" on her social media account. DHS went further, stating that her trips to Iran "illustrate her asylum claims were fraudulent."

The timeline of Afshar's immigration history raises obvious questions about how she obtained protected status in the first place. She entered the United States in 2015 on a tourist visa. She was granted asylum in 2019 and became a green card holder in 2021. Her daughter arrived in 2015 on a student visa, received asylum the same year as her mother, and obtained a green card in 2023.

Then came the detail that apparently sealed the case. In a 2025 naturalization application, meaning Afshar was actively seeking U.S. citizenship, she revealed that she had visited Iran four times since receiving her green card. For someone who claimed she needed asylum from the Iranian regime, those return trips were difficult to explain.

Rubio described the two women in a social media post as "green card holders living lavishly in the United States." Afshar's husband, Hasan Hosseiny, who lives in Iran, has also been banned from the country.

Just The News reported that the State Department confirmed both women were arrested by federal agents following Rubio's termination of their lawful permanent resident status. The department alleged Afshar had expressed support for the IRGC, a designated terror organization.

'She scares me': Former acquaintance speaks out

Aflaki, the retiree who refused Afshar's call from detention, told the California Post he wanted nothing to do with her. His account paints a picture of a woman who used personal relationships to her advantage and left a trail of fear and legal conflict behind her.

Aflaki, who said he met Afshar in 2016, described her in blunt terms:

"She scares me. I was so afraid of her. She knows how to make herself seem like an angel and you feel like the devil. I wanted someone to take her away, now it's happened."

He called her "manipulative" and said she exploited every man she knew. He claimed Afshar stole a $6,500 diamond ring from him. The broader pattern of enforcement actions across the country, including the recent ICE arrest of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee president on immigration fraud accusations, suggests federal authorities are taking a harder look at individuals whose immigration histories don't add up.

Aflaki told the Post he had repeatedly asked Afshar to leave him alone.

"I said please stay away and leave me alone. She was saying 'I love you' but I was so afraid. She said I reminded her of her dad. All these years I was suffering. I wanted to have my life back."

He described Afshar as "very dangerous, a professional troublemaker" and said that since her arrest, "she's become more famous than Kim Kardashian." Aflaki did not stop at Afshar. He said of those with regime ties living in the U.S.: "They should all be deported. These people are poison."

Restraining order and a pattern of harassment

Aflaki was not the only person in Afshar's orbit who sought distance. Zare Mandani, a 54-year-old Los Angeles hairdresser, previously told the Post he was granted a five-year restraining order after Afshar harassed him at his salon and home in 2024. Court filings referenced "emotional abuse, harassment" and stated that Afshar "threatened to hurt herself."

When Mandani learned of Afshar's arrest by ICE, his reaction was brief. "Thank God," he said. "That's good. She's a stalker."

The restraining order, the theft allegation, the harassment, these are not the hallmarks of someone quietly building a new life in America. They are the hallmarks of someone who gamed the system and then behaved as though the rules did not apply. The intensity of the current deportation push, which has been significant enough to hospitalize acting ICE director Todd Lyons twice, reflects the scale of the backlog federal authorities are now working through.

The Soleimani connection

Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Afshar's uncle, was the former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was killed in a U.S. air strike in 2020. The IRGC is a designated foreign terrorist organization. That a close relative of its most prominent commander was able to obtain asylum in the United States, and then visit Iran four times while holding a green card, is a failure that deserves a full accounting.

The case also spotlights another figure with Iranian regime family ties living in Southern California. Eissa Hashemi, a 43-year-old college professor and lecturer at the $20,000-a-year Chicago School in Claremont, east of Los Angeles, has drawn public calls for his removal from the country. His mother, Masoumeh Ebtekar, promoted the militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Ebtekar was later promoted to Vice President for Women and Family Affairs by Iranian regime leaders.

One online critic wrote: "While the mother has no regret of occupying the US embassy in Tehran, many Iranians have been affected by this action while her own son has taken advantage of living in the US." The critic called for Hashemi and his wife, Maryam Tahmasebi, to be "fired from the US as soon as possible." Another poster on Instagram wrote that Hashemi "has never publicly distanced himself from his mother's actions or legacy."

These cases raise a straightforward question: how many others with direct ties to hostile foreign regimes obtained asylum or green cards under false pretenses? The broader debate over ICE enforcement, including operations targeting migrants in Maine, reflects a growing recognition that the immigration system was not just overwhelmed in recent years. In specific cases, it was exploited.

A system that rewarded deception

Consider the sequence. Afshar arrived on a tourist visa. She obtained asylum from the very regime her uncle commanded. She received a green card. She traveled back to Iran, the country she claimed to fear, four times. She applied for full citizenship. And at no point before 2025 did anyone in the federal government apparently connect the dots between her name, her family, and the terrorist organization her uncle led.

DHS now says her asylum claims were fraudulent. The State Department says she promoted regime propaganda. If those assessments are accurate, this was not a failure of resources. It was a failure of basic diligence. And it took a new administration willing to act on the information to do anything about it.

The political debate over ICE enforcement often frames these operations as heavy-handed or indiscriminate. Afshar's case is the opposite. It is a case where specific, verifiable ties to a designated terrorist organization went unaddressed for years, while the individual in question lived comfortably in Southern California, harassed acquaintances, and allegedly stole jewelry.

Aflaki, the man who refused to take her call from the Pearsall detention facility, put it plainly: "I don't want anything to do with her."

When the niece of a dead terrorist commander can game the asylum system for a decade and the only person who saw through her was a retired man in Los Angeles, the problem isn't enforcement, it's that enforcement took this long.