LOS ANGELES — Iranian asylum-seekers who fled the Islamic Republic in the hopes of resettling in Los Angeles were recently arrested by immigration officials, despite having credible-fear cases pending in court, according to attorneys and advocates.
The detentions are part of a nationwide trend of targeting Iranians as tensions between the Trump administration and Iran rise.
Many of the asylum seekers are Christians who fled Iran’s intolerance of non-Muslim religions. According to Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry statistics from 2021, there are 4 million Iranian exiles worldwide, with slightly less than one-third residing in the United States.
The sudden detentions have prompted some Iranians to go on hunger strike while in custody, and at least one medical emergency has occurred during an attempted arrest.
On Tuesday, an Iranian woman had a severe panic attack after witnessing her husband’s arrest in an area known as “Tehrangeles” due to its large Iranian population.
The woman called her pastor, Ara Torosian, for assistance, but he could do little as he watched her panic attack worsen into convulsions.
The couple’s lawyer requested that the woman and her husband remain anonymous for privacy reasons.
Torosian’s video, which was widely shared on social media, shows the woman spasming on the ground as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hovered over her.
Torosian can be heard pleading with them to provide medical assistance. He is also heard asking if they are aware of the situation in Iran and why Christian Iranians are afraid to return to their home country.
According to Torosian, the woman and her husband are members of his church and entered the United States last year using CBP One, a mobile app launched by the Biden administration to streamline the asylum-seeking process. President Donald Trump terminated the program shortly after his return to office.
The woman was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where ICE agents were met by immigrant rights activists and detention protesters.
Torosian claimed that he was not allowed into her hospital room and that immigration officials rudely dismissed a nurse who attempted to intervene on his behalf.
UCLA Health said in a statement that it treated a patient in federal custody and later released him.
“Despite reports on social media, there is no ICE operation happening at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center,” said a hospital official.
A lawyer representing the woman and her husband declined to comment. Immigration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Torosian said on Wednesday that the incident had left him shaken.
He arrived in the United States as a Christian refugee in 2010 and is now a citizen with two children living in Southern California.
However, the recent immigration raids and arrests, combined with anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump administration, remind him more of Iran than he ever imagined possible, he stated.
“I was seeing a woman on the ground and masked people who wouldn’t show their warrants,” he told me. “I was shocked. “Am I in Iran or in Los Angeles?”
Another Iranian Christian family from Torosian’s parish was arrested this week during a routine check-in with immigration officials.
Seyedmajid Seyedali received a text over the weekend instructing him to report to the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Monday with his wife and 4-year-old daughter, according to the family’s lawyer, Kaveh Ardalan.
The family of three thought it was a routine visit and left their dog at home. However, when they arrived, they were taken to the basement and arrested, despite having an asylum hearing scheduled for September, according to Ardalan. They were taken to a detention facility in Texas, where Seyedali’s wife is on hunger strike, he said.
Ardalan claims he has at least five Iranian clients who are seeking asylum and were recently arrested. He also has clients from Honduras and Venezuela in ICE custody who are awaiting asylum proceedings.
Ardalan stated that when possible, he will request that immigration judges release eligible families on bond. Torosian stated that his parish is working to raise enough funds to cover the rent for Seyedali’s home if the family is released.
“I’m ready for the fight,” he said. “I’m standing for my people.”
