ICE arrests dozens of Iranian nationals across US amid sleeper cell concerns
EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 130 Iranian nationals throughout the United States in the last week, and 670 Iranian nationals are in ICE detention, as the Trump administration continues to increase arrests of Iranian nationals in the country illegally amid security concerns.
Multiple federal sources confirmed the numbers, as administration officials and national security experts have warned about the possible risk of sleeper cells being activated, as well as those who may be inspired to retaliate domestically after the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program sites.
“The presence in this country of undocumented migrants or Iranian nationals who have links to Hezbollah, IRGC, is, in my judgment, a domestic law enforcement concern of the highest magnitude,” former Obama-era Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on “Fox & Friends.”
The border crisis under the Biden administration, which resulted in millions of people entering the country illegally, also underscored the concerns.
“We don’t know who they are, where they came from, why they’re here,” border czar Tom Homan said last week. “This is the biggest national security vulnerability we’ve ever seen.”
Meanwhile, former acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey said it “definitely” made things worse.
“I think one thing that’s really concerning about that: One, they weren’t doing any really meaningful vetting in the last administration,” Fahey said.
“The second part of it is, you know, we have probably 2 million known gotaways come through the last administration, and the people that went through the non-ports of entry, we knew they went through but nobody caught them, so we have no idea who went through,” he continued.
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ICE sources confirm that some of those arrested have criminal histories, including charges related to drugs, weapons and domestic violence.
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At least one had served as a sniper in the Iranian military within the last four years. During the Biden administration alone, roughly half of the 1,500 Iranian nationals released into the U.S. were released into the interior.
A recent Supreme Court ruling allowing deportations to third-party countries — even where diplomatic relations are limited — could lead to detainees being sent to nations other than Iran. This ruling was triggered by a flight that headed toward South Sudan with illegal immigrants who had serious criminal convictions, but it was thwarted by a federal judge in Boston, and the legal debate is still ongoing.
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