LOS ANGELES — Iranian asylum-seekers who fled the Islamic Republic in hopes of resettling in Los Angeles have been arrested recently by immigration officials despite having what lawyers and advocates consider credible-fear cases pending in court.
The detentions follow a pattern developing throughout the country of targeting Iranians as tensions continue between the Trump administration and Iran.
Many of the asylum-seekers are Christians who fled Iran and its intolerant views toward non-Muslim religions. There are 4 million Iranian exiles worldwide, just under a third of them in the United States, according to Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry statistics from 2021.
The sudden detentions have prompted some Iranians to go on hunger strikes in custody and triggered at least one medical emergency during an attempted arrest.
On Tuesday, an Iranian woman experienced a severe panic attack after she witnessed her husband’s arrest near an area known as “Tehrangeles” because of its large Iranian population. The woman called her pastor, Ara Torosian, to help intervene, but he could do little as he watched her panic attack escalate into convulsions.
The couple’s lawyer asked that the woman and her husband remain anonymous for privacy reasons.
In a video recorded by Torosian and shared widely on social media, the woman lay on the ground spasming while masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hovered over her. Torosian can be heard pleading with them to administer medical aid. He can also be heard asking whether they know about the situation in Iran and why Christian Iranians fear returning to their native country.
According to Torosian, the woman and her husband are members of his church and entered the United States last year under CBP One, the mobile app the Biden administration launched to streamline the asylum-seeking process. President Donald Trump ended the program shortly after he returned to office.
The woman was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where ICE agents were met by immigrant advocates and detention protesters. Torosian said that he was not allowed into her hospital room and that immigration officials gruffly brushed away a nurse who tried to intercede on his behalf.
UCLA Health said in a statement that it treated a patient under federal custody and later released the person.
“Despite reports on social media, there is no ICE operation happening at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center,” the hospital said.
A lawyer for the woman and her husband declined to comment. Immigration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident left Torosian shaken, he said Wednesday.
He arrived in the United States in 2010 as a Christian refugee and is now a U.S. citizen raising two children in Southern California. But the recent immigration raids and arrests, coupled with anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump administration, remind him more of Iran than he ever imagined possible, he said.
“I was seeing a woman on the ground and masked people who wouldn’t show their warrants,” he said. “I was just shocked. Am I in Iran or am I in L.A.?”
Another Iranian Christian family in Torosian’s parish were arrested this week during a scheduled check-in with immigration officials.
Seyedmajid Seyedali received a text over the weekend telling him to report to the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Monday with his wife and 4-year-daughter, said the family’s lawyer, Kaveh Ardalan.
Thinking it was a routine visit, the family of three left their dog at home. But when they arrived, they were taken to the basement and arrested despite having an asylum hearing scheduled for September, Ardalan said. They were transferred to a detention facility in Texas, where Seyedali’s wife is on a hunger strike, he said.
Ardalan said he has at least five Iranian clients who are seeking asylum and were arrested recently. He also has clients from Honduras and Venezuela with pending asylum cases who are now in ICE custody.
When he can, Ardalan said, he will ask immigration judges to release eligible families on bond. Torosian said his parish is working to collect enough to pay rent for Seyedali’s home should the family get released.
“I’m ready for the fight,” he said. “I’m standing for my people.”