Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian lived in the United States for 47 years, married an American citizen and raised his daughter. Her family said she gardened in her New Orleans yard when U.S. immigration and customs law enforcement officers were handcuffed and took her away.
Kashanian arrived on a student visa in 1978 and applied for asylum, worried about his father’s support for the US-backed Shah. Her husband and daughter said she lost the bid, but she was allowed to be with her husband and children if she checked regularly with immigration officials. During Hurricane Katrina, she signed in from South Carolina and she complied. She is now being held in an immigration detention center in Basil, Louisiana, while her family is trying to get information.
Other Iranians have also been arrested by immigration authorities for decades. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security won’t say how many people they arrested, but the U.S. military strike against Iran has sparked concerns and more.
“Of course, a certain level of vigilance makes sense, but it seems that what ICE does is basically giving an order to bring together as many Iranians as possible, whether they are related to any threats or not, and then arrest them and arrest them, which is very worrying, and it is very worrying.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email commenting on the Kastonian case, but has been touting the arrest of Iranians. The department announced the arrest of at least 11 Iranians in violation of immigration over the weekend of the U.S. missile strike. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had no details, and it arrested seven Iranians in a speech in the Los Angeles area, “had been used to harbor illegal contestants related to terrorism.”
Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in 11 arrests that the department “has been identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists who illegally entered the country and coming through Biden’s fraudulent parole program or otherwise.” She did not provide any evidence of terrorists or extremist relations. Her comment on parole program refers to the expanded legal avenue into President Joe Biden, which his successor, Donald Trump, closed.
Kastonian husband Russell Milne said his wife was not a threat. He explained that her appeal for asylum was complicated because of “early events.” The court found her early marriage to be fraudulent.
But forty years, Kashanian, 64, has established a life in Louisiana. The couple met in the late 1980s while students were bartending. They got married and had a daughter. She volunteered to attend the Habitat Habitat, filmed a Persian cooking tutorial on YouTube, and was the grandmother of the child next door.
Milne said fear of deportation always shrouded the family, but he said his wife did everything she asked for.
“She is fulfilling her obligations,” Milne said. “Her retirement age. She is not a threat. Who picked up her grandmother?”
Although Iranians have been illegally crossing the border for years, especially since 2021, there has been little risk of being deported to their home countries due to cuts in diplomatic relations with the United States, and this seems to be the case anymore.
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, including Iranians, to countries other than themselves, in an attempt to bypass diplomatic barriers with governments that will not bring their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama regained non-citizens from the United States
The government has asked the Supreme Court to clear the deportation to South Sudan, a country attacked by war, after the Supreme Court allowed the deportation to countries sent to non-citizens.
According to the latest public data, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Iranians 1,700 times at the Mexican border from October 2021 to November 2024. The Department of Homeland Security reported that during the 12-month period in September 2023, about 600 Iranians had overdue visas as business or exchange visitors, tourists and students, the latest data report.
Iran is one of the 12 countries that have entered into the U.S. travel ban that came into effect this month. Some fears that ICE’s growing deportation arrests will be another blow.
In Oregon, an Iranian man was detained by immigrant agents while driving to the gym last week. According to court documents filed by his attorney Michael Purcell, he plans to check in at the Portland ICE office for about two weeks.
The man identified as SF in court documents and has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, with his wife and two children being U.S. citizens.
SF applied for asylum in the United States in the early 2000s, but his application was denied in 2002. His appeal failed, but the government was not deported and he continued to live in the country for decades.
Purcell wrote in the petition that due to Iran’s “change situation”, the SF will face “the danger of persecution” and that if he is to be deported, he will face “the danger of persecution”. “These situations involve recent bombings of the U.S. Iranian nuclear facility, thus creating a de facto war situation between the U.S. and Iran.”
He said SF’s long-term residence in the United States, his transformation to Christianity and the fact that his wife and children were U.S. citizens “significantly increased the likelihood of his imprisonment in Iran, or torture or execution.”
Similarly, the Kastonian daughter said she was worried about what would happen to her mother.
“She tried to do everything,” Kaitlynn Milne said.
