A devout MAGA mom holed up in a detention center in the Mojave Desert says her support for Trump is unwavering, despite his ICE goons locking her up.
Arpineh Masihi, a mother of four children born in the U.S., was born in Iran but has been in the United States since she was 3 years old. She became a target for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers due to crimes committed 17 years ago, and was arrested in June as part of the president’s controversial immigration crackdown.
The 39-year-old was eating breakfast with her family at their home in Diamond Bar, Los Angeles County, California, when ICE agents called her phone. Just 30 minutes later, she was cuffed in front of her young kids and brought to a dingy holding cell in downtown Los Angeles.
From there, she was shipped to Adelanto immigrant detention center in California’s Mojave Desert. Despite “very challenging” conditions in the prison-like facility, Masihi still has faith in the Trump administration.
“He’s doing the right thing because lots of these people don’t deserve to be here,” Masihi told the BBC in a phone call from her new home in the desert.
“I will support him until the day I die. He’s making America great again.”
Masihi is a Christian Armenian-Iranian, something she and her husband, Arthu Sahakyan, believe makes her undeportable to her home nation, which is largely Shia Islam.
“We are Christians. She can’t go back, there’s no way,” Sahakyan told the BBC, suggesting his wife’s life would be at risk.
Sahakyan admits that their “home is broken” by his wife’s arrest, but he also refuses to blame Trump for their predicament.
“I don’t blame Trump, I blame Biden,” Sahakyan said. “It’s his doing for open borders, but I believe in the system and all the good people will be released and the ones that are bad will be sent back.”
In 2008, Masihi was sentenced to two years in prison after she was convicted of burglary and grand theft. Her Green Card was taken away by an immigration judge, making her current predicament all the more challenging.
Since then, Masihi has started a business and had four children, aged 14, 11, 10 and 4. She and her family live in the affluent Los Angeles County suburb of Diamond Bar.
After Masihi’s arrest on June 30, Sahakyan refused to take the Trump flags down from the family’s yard and, speaking to the media, attempted to justify ICE’s work.
He said that detaining people like his wife “will resolve a lot of issues because we’ll know exactly who’s in here, for what reasons. Even though I miss her dearly.”
As for his feelings toward the president, he said, “Trump is not trying to do anything bad. We understand what he’s doing. He wants the best for the country.”
The couple, meanwhile, are awaiting updates on their legal case.
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