A sign stands at the entrance to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Iran’s Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar addresses world leaders at the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Le Bourget, outside Paris, Nov. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Iranian family that’s been living in the United States for a decade is demanding their release from immigration detention after they were arrested because of their relation to a central figure in the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.
Eissa Hashemi’s mother, Masoumeh Ebtekar, was known as “Sister Mary,” the chador-wearing spokesperson who mocked America during the crisis and condemned the hostages as “spies” to be prosecuted. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in April he was revoking the family’s green cards over their ties to Ebtekar, and the Department of Homeland Security has since moved to deport Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son.
A federal judge has temporarily barred the government from deporting the family after they filed petitions challenging the legality of their detention. They’ve been held in immigration facilities in Texas since they were arrested in early April in Los Angeles.
