Federal agents announced the arrest of 11 Iranian foreign nationals as President Donald Trump raged against the rocky and unraveling ceasefire between Israel and Iran Tuesday.
The individuals were detained in only 48 hours in a mass operation that encompassed nine cities nationwide.
Along with the Iranians, U.S. citizen Linet Vartaniann was taken into custody on federal charges of threatening a law enforcement officer and harboring an undocumented immigrant. ICE officials claim that the woman threatened to shoot them if they entered her home.
Trump administration officials said that none of the Iranian individuals arrested were plotting any specific terrorism plots despite the National Terrorism Advisory System warning of a “heightened threat environment in the United States,” after the military struck Iran’s nuclear sites Saturday.
ICE arrested 11 Iranian nationals illegally in the U.S. over the weekend. These arrests reflect @Sec_Noem’s commitment to keeping known and suspected terrorists out of American communities.🧵The criminal illegal aliens arrested include an individual with admitted ties to…
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 24, 2025
But Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers say that all men were charged or accused of crimes beyond civil immigration violations. ICE added that five of those arrested had previously criminal convictions including grand larceny and drug or firearm possessions.
The men who were arrested include Mehran Makari Saheli near his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. ICE officials accused the man of being a former member or an elite branch of Iran’s armed forces, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and that the detainee has “admitted connections to Hezbollah.”
Yousef Mehridehno was also apprehended in central Mississippi outside of Jackson. He had formerly had a green card but had been living undocumented in the country for eight years. Federal authorities determined he lied on a visa application and he was added to the U.S. known or suspected terrorist list in February.
Another man, Ribvar Karmi, was detained in northern Alabama. Federal agents claim to have found him carrying a an Islamic Republic of Iran Army identification card and say that he served as an Iranian Army sniper from 2018 to 2021.
Other individuals include Behzad Sepehrian Bahary Nejad in Houston; Hamid Reza Bayat in Houston; Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand in Phoenix; Bahman Alizadeh Asfestani in San Francisco; Arkavan Babk Moirokorli in San Deigo; Mahmoud Shafiei and Mehrdad Mehdipour in Colorado Springs; and Mohammad Rafikian in Buffalo.
On June 22, in St. Paul, Minnesota, ICE arrested Mehran Makari Saheli, a 56-year-old Iranian national. He was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in Minneapolis, where he was sentenced to 15 months in prison.He is a former member of off the Islamic… pic.twitter.com/GBhWrkJM0z
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 24, 2025
Trump has escalated his mass immigration crackdown, with a target to make 3,000 arrests per day and “getting the worst of the worst out,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said to CBS News.
“We don’t wait until a military operation to execute; we proactively deliver on President Trump’s mandate to secure the homeland,” she said.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said only that the U.S. has seen certain Hezbollah sleeper cells—a term used to describe a clandestine group of terrorists who lie dormant until activated—have “gone overseas for a short period of time, become radicalized and come back.”
She said: “We have to watch for all of it, and to be diligent on all of it, and we’ll continue to do so.”
The threat of such sleeper cells has provoked paranoia among MAGA influencers and major leaders. Trump’s deportation adviser Tom Homan on Sunday made the unsubstantiated insinuation that any of the “thousands” of Iranian immigrants who came to the U.S. during the Biden administration could be part of a secret terror cell.
Commissioner Rodney Scott also alleged that thousands of Iranians had entered the country “illegally” and that “the threat of sleeper cells or sympathizers acting on their own, or at the behest of Iran has never been higher” in a memo to Customs and Border Protection. Despite the suspicious claims, nobody in the White House has identified specific threats.
Trump exploded in a curse-filled rant Tuesday as Iran and Israel violated the unstable ceasefire deal within hours of his supposedly victorious announcement.
“You basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing! Do you understand that?” he told reporters.
The Daily Beast has reached out to ICE for comment.
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