An Iranian army sniper and a suspected terrorist linked to Hezbollah are among the several illegal migrants living in the US who have been arrested by ICE since Sunday. Ribvar Karimi, who was an Iranian Army sniper from 2018 to 2021, was arrested in rural Alabama, where he had been living with his American wife.
ICE agents tracked him on Sunday in the town of Locust Fork and found an identification card from the Islamic Republic of Iran Army in his possession, DHS claimed. Karimi legally arrived in the US in October during the Biden administration on a K-1 visa, which is issued to foreign nationals engaged to American citizens.
Sniper in America
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Karimi married his fiancée, Morgan Gardener, in January of this year. However, he did not complete the necessary steps to adjust his immigration status, which rendered his stay in the U.S. illegal.
Karimi’s American wife maintains that he loves America and considers himself a proud immigrant. “This man loves America, the first purchase he made when he got here was an American Flag,” Morgan Gardner told a local station.
“If he was here on bad intentions, he wouldn’t have done that, he wouldn’t be willing to walk around with a flag, knowing he could get deported and sent back to a country where he could be killed for that.”
She is currently seven months pregnant with their first child and fears she may have to give birth without him by her side.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, authorities arrested 56-year-old Mehran Makari Saheli, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who admitted to having ties to Hezbollah, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
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He had previously been convicted of being a felon in possession of a weapon and had served a 15-month prison sentence.
Although a judge ordered his deportation on June 28, 2022, he managed to avoid arrest by authorities.
Both Karimi and Saheli are currently being held in ICE custody as they await deportation.
Several Sleeper Cell Suspects Arrested
Over the weekend, authorities also arrested Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, who had been ordered to leave the U.S. by an immigration judge 12 years ago. Eidivand had previous convictions for threatening a law enforcement officer and for being a non-citizen in possession of a weapon.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, he originally crossed the southern border in June 2012 and was arrested on Sunday in Tempe, Arizona.
In Texas, ICE agents arrested Behzad Sepehrian Bahary Nejad, who was armed with a 9mm handgun when he was being taken into custody.
Sepehrian entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2016 and was arrested the next year in the Houston area for allegedly choking a family member. His wife later obtained a restraining order against him after he reportedly made threats toward her and their relatives in Iran.
A student at the University of Texas, he was ordered to be deported in 2019. Another man, also suspected of having links to terrorism, was arrested in Mississippi.
Yousef Mehridehno had been stripped of his lawful permanent resident status in October 2017 after officials found out that he had provided false information on his immigration application. He was allowed to stay in the U.S. during the early days of Trump’s term.
More arrests were carried out in Houston, Colorado, San Francisco, and San Diego.
In total, 11 Iranian nationals were arrested, along with an American woman, Linet Vartaniann, who was arrested in Arizona for allegedly threatening to shoot ICE agents.
These arrests come as it has been revealed that over 1,500 Iranians have entered the United States during the Biden administration.
The detentions have been taking place since Sunday as part of a large-scale Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation, amid increasing concerns over possible terrorist ‘sleeper cells’ preparing to strike within the U.S.
President Trump has issued warnings that Iranian sleeper cells may be planning attacks against Americans. “And among everything else, (Biden) let in a lot of super cells, many from Iran,” the Republican wrongly said, meaning sleeper cells.
Over the weekend, Department of Homeland Security agents launched an aggressive crackdown, detaining people from the Islamic Republic of Iran, as Tehran issued threats of retaliation against the U.S. in response to the bombing of three nuclear facilities within the country.
