The wife of an Iranian illegal immigrant allegedly threatened to shoot ICE agents in the head when they showed up at the couple’s Arizona home to arrest her husband, Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, who had been ignoring a deportation order for over ten years.
Linet Vartanians, 37, is accused of threatening federal agents that she had a loaded weapon and would open fire on anyone who tried to enter the couple’s Tempe home, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She also allegedly made direct threats to shoot the ICE officers in the head as they stood outside the home on Saturday.
Arrested for Threatening ICE Agents
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Both Linet Vartanians and illegal immigrant husband, Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, 40, were federally indicted on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Eidivand has been under a deportation order since 2013 but has remained in the U.S. illegally.
When ICE agents arrived at their home, they were met by Vartanians, who refused to let them in, demanded a warrant, and then contacted local police, the U.S. attorney said.
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A police dispatcher who spoke with Eidivand said that the undocumented immigrant admitted to having three firearms in the house.
Federal agents came back the next day with a search warrant and found one loaded gun on the kitchen counter and another on a nightstand.
The couple was arrested that same day.
The Trump administration has intensified its efforts to arrest Iranian nationals as part of its broader mass deportation strategy, particularly in the aftermath of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Over the past week, ICE arrested 130 illegal Iranian immigrants across the U.S., including people suspected of terrorism, according to NewsNation.
Big Suspects Arrested
Among those arrested is an Iranian army sniper and a suspected terrorist linked to Hezbollah. 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.
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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.
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.
