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.

By LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans appeared Friday to push President Donald Trump’s big bill back on track after a flurry of last-minute revisions, including deep cuts to food stamps, but there’s still a long way to go ahead of expected weekend votes.

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Trump himself at first gave Congress some breathing room as senators race to meet his Fourth of July deadline, declaring, “It’s not the end all,” during a press conference at the White House. But he reversed course a short while later, insisting Republicans in the House ensure it’s done by the Independence Day holiday.

“We can get it done,” Trump said in a post. “It will be a wonderful Celebration for our Country.”

As the party in majority power, Republicans are grinding through a punch-list of still-unsettled issues as they try to push the package to passage over unified Democratic opposition. Republicans are relying on steep cuts to health care, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for $3.8 trillion in tax breaks, their top priority. Any one of the roadblocks could doom the sprawling package.

The proposed Medicaid cuts, in particular, have raised stark concerns among some GOP senators worried that millions in their states will lose access to the health care program. At the same time, a tentative deal between the White House and House GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax districts over the size of a state and local tax deduction, called SALT, needs broader agreement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who sent his lawmakers home for the weekend with plans to be on call to return swiftly to Washington, said they are “very close” to finishing up.

“We would still like to meet that July 4th, self-imposed deadline,” said Johnson, R-La.

Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have stayed close to the White House throughout the process of drafting the big package, which they stress is needed to avoid a massive tax hike at the end of the year when current tax rates expire. The GOP leadership is relying on Trump to pressure holdout lawmakers to push it to passage.

“My expectation is at some point tomorrow we’ll be ready to go,” Thune said. He was referring to the start of what is expected to be a multi-day process of speeches and voting in the days ahead, before a final roll call vote.

The speaker made the walk across the Capitol to join Senate Republicans for lunch, where they also met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over the emerging SALT deal.

But it’s not a done deal yet, Bessent said afterward. He acknowledged the Senate’s reaction to the latest offer was “varied.”

The White House and House Republicans had narrowed on a plan to keep the SALT provision on the House-passed terms of a $40,000 cap on deductions — but for five years, instead of 10.

The SALT deduction has been a key holdup as lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states negotiate. They want to quadruple what’s now a $10,000 cap. Senate Republicans argued that it’s too generous, costing hundreds of billions of dollars for the benefit of a few lawmakers’ home regions.

With their narrow majorities in the House and Senate, they need almost every lawmaker on board with the package to ensure passage. One GOP holdout, Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, says he can’t support the compromise.

But other provisions were being shored up after a series of setbacks when the Senate parliamentarian advised they would not pass the chamber’s strict “Byrd Rule” that largely bars policy matters from inclusion in budget bills, unless they can pass the 60-vote threshold that GOP leaders want to avoid.

The Republican proposal to shift the costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, has been accepted by the Senate parliamentarian.

Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said provisions to make certain immigrants ineligible for food aid were also accepted.

“This paves the way for important reforms that improve efficiency and management of SNAP,” he said.

But the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, said her party will “keep fighting these proposals that raise grocery costs and take food away from millions of people, including seniors, children, and veterans.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said some 10.9 million more people will go without health care and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid under the House-passed bill. CBO has not yet publicly assessed the Senate draft, which has proposed steeper reductions.

The top income earners would see about a $12,000 tax cut under the House-passed bill, while the poorest Americans would see a $1,600 tax hike, the CBO said.

The parliamentarian also accepted a revised proposal from the Senate Banking Committee to cut, rather than gut, the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The entity was set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but Trump has downsized the bureau and its staff.

Still, a range of GOP provisions have been found to be out of compliance with Senate rules — including shielding certain firearms silencers from taxes and creating a national school voucher program.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck said Republicans are rushing to finish the bill before the public fully knows what’s in it.

“There’s no good reason for Republicans to chase a silly deadline,” Schumer said.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti, Fatima Hussein, Seung Min Kim and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

By SONIA PÉREZ D.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said Friday he has not signed an agreement with the United States to take asylum seekers from other countries, pushing back against comments from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

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Noem and Arévalo met Thursday in Guatemala and the two governments publicly signed a joint security agreement that would allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to work in the capital’s airport, training local agents how to screen for terrorism suspects.

But Noem said she had also been given a signed document she called a safe third country agreement. She said she reached a similar deal in Honduras and said they were important outcomes of her trip.

“Honduras and now Guatemala after today will be countries that will take those individuals and give them refugee status as well,” Noem said. “We’ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the United States.”

Asked about Noem’s comments Friday during a news conference, Arévalo said that nothing new was signed related to immigration and that Guatemala was still operating under an agreement reached with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February. That agreement stipulated that Guatemala would continue accepting the deportation of its own citizens, but also citizens of other Central American nations as a transit point on their way home.

Arévalo said that when Rubio visited, safe third country was discussed because Guatemala had signed such an agreement during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term in office. But “we made it clear that our path was different,” Arévalo said.

He did add that Guatemala was willing to provide asylum to Nicaraguans who have been unable to return to their country because of the political situation there out of “solidarity.”

The president’s communications office said Noem had been given the ratification of the agreement reached through diplomatic notes weeks earlier.

During Trump’s first term, the U.S. signed such safe third-country agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. They effectively allowed the U.S. to declare some asylum seekers ineligible to apply for U.S. protection and permitted the U.S. government to send them to those countries deemed “safe.”

By AAMER MADHANI and WILL WEISSERT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday scoffed at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s heated warning to the U.S. not to launch future strikes on Iran, as well as the Iranian supreme leader’s assertion that Tehran “won the war” with Israel.

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Trump, in remarks to reporters and later in an extended statement on social media, said the ayatollah’s comments defied reality after 12 days of Israeli strikes and the U.S. bombardment of three key nuclear sites inflicted severe damage on the country’s nuclear program. The president suggested Khamenei’s comments were unbecoming of Iran’s most powerful political and religious figure.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth,” Trump said of Khamenei. “You got beat to hell.”

The U.S. president spoke out a day after Khamenei insisted Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and warned against further attacks by the U.S. or Israel on Iran. Khamenei’s pre-recorded statement, which aired on Iranian state television, was the first time that Iranians had heard directly from the supreme leader in days.

The heated rhetoric from Trump and Khamenei continued as both leaders face difficult questions about the impact of the strikes.

Trump and his aides have pushed back vociferously after an early damage assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency became public and indicated that the U.S. bombardment likely only set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months. The 86-year-old Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran’s theocracy, meanwhile, has appeared intent on demonstrating his authority and vigor amid speculation about his health and how involved he was in making Iran’s wartime decisions through the 12-day conflict.

In a social media post Friday, Trump also appeared to refer to a plan presented to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict to try to kill Khamenei. Trump vetoed that plan, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Trump, after the U.S. airstrikes, sent chilling warnings via social media to Khamenei that the U.S. knew where he was but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now.”

After launching the U.S. strikes — including with U.S.-made bunker-buster bombs — Trump has been insistent that Iran’s nuclear sites have been “obliterated.” Administration officials have not disputed the contents of the DIA report but have sought to focus on a CIA statement and other intelligence assessments, including those out of Iran and Israel, that said the strikes severely damaged the nuclear sites and rendered an enrichment facility inoperable.

Trump also said that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify it doesn’t restart its nuclear program.

Asked if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency or some other organization be authorized to conduct inspections, Trump told reporters the Islamic Republic would have to cooperate with the IAEA “or somebody that we respect, including ourselves.”

White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled.

U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this week said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of U.S.-Iran negotiations was scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was canceled after Israel attacked Iran.

Trump expressed confidence that Iran’s nuclear ambition has faded.

“Can I tell you, they’re exhausted. And Israel’s exhausted, too,” Trump said. He added, “The last thing they’re thinking right now is nuclear.”