"Last year, ICE agents arrested Mandonna Kashanian while she was picking figs in front of her New Orleans home. She was 64 years old with no criminal record, had arrived in the United States in 1978 and lived in New Orleans for 47 years - volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and raising a family of U.S. citizens. She was then detained by ICE without due process and released only after Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise personally intervened."
"In just one week after that June war, federal immigration authorities took 183 Iranians into custody - up from just five the week before, according to data included in a report I contributed to last October. The pattern is unmistakable: The more war we have with Iran, the more we dehumanize and abuse Iranians here - and in the times that U.S. bombs have fallen on Iran, ICE has arrested and abused Iranians en masse in the United States."
"As of September 2025, 320 documented final orders of removal had been issued to Iranians; 83 cases were heard in California courts and 28 deportees were residents of Los Angeles County alone - the heart of the largest Iranian American community in the country."
Iranian American communities experience heightened immigration enforcement and deportations during periods of military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Following Israeli airstrikes on Iran in June, ICE arrests of Iranians surged dramatically from five to 183 in a single week. Cases like Mandonna Kashanian's—a 64-year-old with 47 years of U.S. residency and no criminal record arrested while picking figs—illustrate the pattern of targeting long-established community members. By September 2025, 320 final removal orders had been issued to Iranians, with significant concentrations in California courts and Los Angeles County, home to the largest Iranian American community. This enforcement creates a two-front crisis: families face bombing campaigns abroad while relatives face deportation domestically.
Read at Truthout
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