Published Aug. 20, 2026

In August 2026, a claim circulated online that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained an Iranian man and his family — legal residents who were residing in Los Angeles — because his mother was a spokesperson for the Iranian government during the 1979 hostage crisis, in which militants seized 66 American citizens at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

The story spread via numerous Facebook posts, where one popular account compared the detention of Eissa Hashemi and his wife, Maryam Tahmasebi, along with their teenage son, to the "guilty-by-association" internment camps that Japanese Americans faced during World War II.

(Facebook)

The claim stems from an Aug. 11, 2026, article that Tahmasebi wrote for progressive news magazine The Nation, titled (archived), "One Woman's Message From the Hell of ICE Detention."

In the publication, Tahmasebi describes how, despite not having any criminal record and living in the U.S. as permanent residents with valid green cards, ICE agents detained her husband without warning before also detaining her and their teenage son in what she described as "bloodline punishment" for her mother-in-law's role as a translator in the 1979 hostage crisis.

Hashemi's mother, Masoumeh Ebtekar (nicknamed "Screaming Mary," or similar, in the American press) was known for her role in the Islamic Revolution (minute 00:48) and continued to work in Iranian politics for many years after the hostage crisis. Until 2021, she was the vice president for the Islamic Republic's Women and Family Affairs office and, as of this writing, she is a professor of Immunology at Iran's School of Medical Sciences.

"There's no specific allegations related to these three individuals other than their familial relationship," Curtis Morrison, the family's lawyer, reportedly told The Associated Press.

In short, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have both produced statements corroborating Tahmasebi's account in The Nation that she and her family were detained due to her mother-in-law's role in the hostage crisis. Therefore, we've rated this claim true.

What DHS and Rubio said

Speaking via email, a DHS spokesperson repeated the agency's public statement (archived) from April 2026, shortly after Hashemi, Tahmasebi and their son were detained. The spokesperson said:

ICE arrested Eissa Seyed Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, and their minor son in Los Angeles, California. Eissa Seyed Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, an Iranian regime politician who also acted as a spokesperson during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. ICE law enforcement officers successfully apprehended all three individuals whose presence in the United States posed a clear threat to our national security and foreign policy.

The DHS spokesperson also confirmed the family became legal green card holders in 2016, but added: "It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America. If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the U.S., the green card will be revoked."

In an April 11, 2026, statement (archived), Rubio said ICE detained the three individuals for their relation to Ebtekar, who was known for her ability in communicating with the American press.

Ebtekar, Hashemi and Tahmasebi

According to journalist Mark Bowden in his book, "Guests of the Ayatollah," Ebtekar's "familiarity with America added profound emphasis to her rejection of it" in the eyes of the hostages.

It is unclear what Ebtekar's relation to her son and his family was when they were detained. As far as it was possible to determine, she has not, as of this writing, posted on her social media accounts anything about their detainment. It was also not possible to find any evidence of Hashemi or his family maintaining active ties to Iran's government.

Calls for Hashemi's deportation came from the American-Iranian diaspora in particular, around the time the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began in early 2026. One petition had garnered more than 140,000 signatures, as of this writing. 

In her Aug. 11 article, Tahmasebi wrote: "The government had decided to punish my husband for being the son of a woman who was a translator for the Iranian hostage takers in 1979, before Eissa was even born."

According to Tahmasebi, she and her son have been detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, while Hashemi was taken to the separate South Texas Detention Center. She wrote that they were only able to speak with Hashemi for 10 minutes every two weeks, under supervision.

Snopes was unable to find Hashemi in the detainee database, though we did find Tahmasebi (shown below). ICE does not publicly display information about detained children. 

(locator.ice.gov)

Shortly after the family was arrested, a federal judge reportedly temporarily barred the U.S. government from deporting them after their lawyer filed petitions challenging the legality of their detention. It is unclear how long the temporary bar is intended to last. We reached out to the family's lawyer seeking further information and will update this story if we receive a response.

By Taija PerryCook