An Iranian army sniper and a suspected terrorist with ties to Hezbollah are among illegal migrants living in the US who have been arrested by ICE.
Ribvar Karimi, who served as an Iranian Army sniper from 2018 to 2021, was arrested in rural Alabama, where he has been living with his American wife.
When ICE agents found him in the town of Locust Fork Sunday, he had an Islamic Republic of Iran Army identification card, DHS claimed.
Karimi entered the country legally on a K-1 visa, for foreigners engaged to be married to Americans, in October under the Biden administration.
He married his bride, Morgan Gardener, in January this year. However, Karimi failed to adjust his status, making his presence in the US illegal.
In Minnesota, agents nabbed Mehran Makari Saheli, 56, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with admitted connections to Hezbollah, according to the Department of Homeland Security today.
He already had a conviction for felon in possession of a firearm and served 15 months in prison.
Despite being ordered out of the country by a judge on June 28, 2022, he evaded authorities.
Both men are now in ICE custody pending removal.
Karimi’s American wife insists he loves America and is a proud immigrant.
‘This man loves America, the first purchase he made when he got here was an American Flag,’ Morgan Gardner told a local station.
‘If he was here on bad intentions, he wouldn’t have done that, he wouldn’t be willing to walk around with a flag, knowing he could get deported and sent back to a country where he could be killed for that.’
She is seven months pregnant with their first child and fears she’ll have to give birth alone.
Also arrested over the weekend was Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, who had been ordered to leave the US 12 years ago by an immigration judge.
He had also been convicted of threatening a law enforcement officer and being an alien in possession of a firearm.
Eidivand entered through the southern border in June 2012, DHS said, and he was arrested in Tempe, Arizona Sunday.
Armed with a 9mm pistol when ICE agents caught up to him, Behzad Sepehrian Bahary Nejad was arrested in Texas.
After entering the US on a student visa in 2016, Sepehrian was arrested a year later in the Houston area for choking a family member.
His wife was able to get a restraining order against him after he threatened her and her family back in Iran.
