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Maryam T. and Eissa T.: 16-year-old and parents detained by ICE 120+ days after green cards revoked

A 16-year-old Los Angeles student and aspiring tennis player has been held over 120 days with his mother after his family's green cards were revoked, citing his grandmother's 1979 hostage crisis role.

Apr 2026Dilley, TXCountry of origin: Iran

Maryam T. and Eissa T.: 16-year-old and parents detained by ICE 120+ days after green cards revoked
Photo via Texas Tribune

S.M.H., a 16-year-old Los Angeles high school student and aspiring tennis player, was detained by ICE in April 2026 along with his parents, Maryam and Eissa Tahmasebi—both educators, with Maryam a professor at Los Angeles Pierce College—after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the family's green cards. Lawyers say the family, all permanent residents, is being punished because Eissa's mother, at age 19, served as a spokesperson for the student group that held Americans hostage in Iran in 1979, calling it unprecedented "bloodline punishment" for actions preceding their births. S.M.H. and his mother have been held for more than 120 days at the Dilley family detention center—far exceeding the 20-day Flores settlement limit—while his father is detained separately, with the family limited to 10-minute biweekly phone calls. In a letter published in The Nation, Maryam described the ordeal as an "unendurable, unending nightmare," while immigration lawyer Hassan Ahmad said he has not seen foreign policy grounds used to detain people based solely on family relationship rather than individual conduct.

“We have been put through hell for the past four months, and our physical and mental health have deteriorated in ways that might not be reversible for years,”
— Maryam Tahmasebi
“I have struggled to understand how this can happen to people who have never broken the law, in a system I believed to be based on the rule of law,”
— Maryam Tahmasebi
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