A 56-year-old Iranian national was arrested in St. Paul last weekend by ICE authorities who say he was ordered to leave the country in 2022.
Mehran Makari Saheli, was one of 11 Iranian nationals arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a 48-hour period in eight states, according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security.
The press release said he was “convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in Minneapolis, where he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. He is a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with admitted connections to Hezbollah.”
In addition, authorities said in the release that an immigration judge ordered him removed from the country in 2022 but he remained here “illegally.”
He is now in ICE custody pending removal from the country, the release said.
On Friday, Saheli’s attorney, Bruce Nestor, said that allegations that Saheli has connections to Hezbollah are false. He said the claims were part of a “fear-mongering press release claiming the arrest of terrorists and suspected terrorists to keep the American people safe.”
“The idea that he is a terrorist or suspected terrorist is defamatory,” Nestor said. “There is absolutely no evidence to support that. The claims that he has ties to (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) is related purely to his military service in the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s.”
ICE did not reply to emails about the case on Friday night.
Nestor said the arrest, especially considering that Saheli has been complying with ICE requirements for the past 18 months, is disturbing.
“It appears that ICE intends to remove Mr. Saheli to an unidentified third country without providing him any notice of where they are seeking to remove him or an opportunity to challenge that and that is profoundly troubling because it means that ICE can do that to anybody,” Nestor said, adding that the agency has admitted detaining U.S. citizens by mistake.
Nestor said that while it is true that Saheli was ordered deported in 2022, ICE could not arrange that removal back to Iran and so Saheli was released in November 2023. Saheli applied for asylum as he feared for his life if he returned to Iran, Nestor said. Since then he has been reporting to ICE as required for the past 18 months, which has included an ankle bracelet and cell phone geo-locations and checking in at least once a week with authorities.
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Saheli’s conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm stemmed from a felony he received after he entered the United States to escape violence in Iran using his cousin’s passport, he said.
Nestor said as far as he is aware, Saheli has never been convicted of any crime that involves violence.
“His immigration file is full of letters of reference from people who know him, former employees, neighbors, people he has helped,” Nestor said. “I’m not trying to say he’s a perfect guy, but the picture painted of him in the press release is false and part of a coordinated campaign to arrest Iranian nationals and lump them as terrorists is problematic and designed to instill fear in the rest of the population of the United States.”
Nestor said Saheli has worked in the United States for the past 27 years, mostly in the construction field.
ICE did not reply to emails about the case on Friday afternoon.
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