Professor Says ICE Detained Her Family Over What Husband's Mother Did Before He Was Born: 'Bloodline Punishment'

A California professor detained with her teenage son says US immigration authorities are punishing her family for something her husband's mother did nearly 50 years ago, before her husband was born.

Maryam Tahmasebi, a psychology and statistics professor at Los Angeles Pierce College, described her family's ordeal in an essay published by The Nation, which she said she wrote from inside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.

Tahmasebi said she, her husband, Eissa Hashemi, and their high school-aged son are lawful permanent residents with valid green cards. She also said neither she nor her husband has a criminal record, adding that they had not even received a traffic ticket.

Hashemi is also an educator and has worked with doctoral students in business psychology, including military veterans, according to Tahmasebi.

Husband Vanished After School Pickup

Tahmasebi said the family's life changed on 9 April, when her son texted to say his father had not picked him up from school and was not answering his phone.

She picked up her son, rushed home and called police, fearing something had happened to Hashemi. She said it did not occur to her that he might have been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Eventually, his phone's location showed that he was at an ICE facility in downtown Los Angeles. Tahmasebi said she was able to speak with him briefly and that he told her she and their son were safe.

The next day, Tahmasebi said Department of Homeland Security vehicles surrounded her car as she took her son to school. She and her son were then detained, and she said she watched authorities place the teenager in handcuffs.

'This Is Bloodline Punishment'

Tahmasebi alleged that the government is seeking to revoke the family's permanent resident status because Hashemi's mother worked as a translator for Iranian hostage-takers during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Hashemi had not yet been born at the time.

'I came here because I wanted to build a life for myself and my family that was defined by my own actions, not anyone else's,' she wrote.

Instead, Tahmasebi said their lives were being upended because of 'something someone else did nearly 50 years ago'.

'This is bloodline punishment,' Tahmasebi wrote.

Her characterisation reflects her account of the government's case. The precise legal grounds cited by immigration authorities for seeking to revoke the family's permanent resident status are not established, and the allegation that they are being punished solely because of Hashemi's mother's actions should not be presented as independently confirmed fact.

Family Separated in Texas

Tahmasebi and her son were transferred from Los Angeles to Texas overnight. She said they have spent more than 120 days at the Dilley facility, while Hashemi was taken separately to the South Texas Detention Center in Pearsall.

When she asked for her husband to be transferred to Dilley so the family could be reunited, Tahmasebi said she was told that family separation was 'the policy and the rule' in their case. She said she and her son are permitted to speak with Hashemi for only 10 minutes every two weeks under supervision.

Those details are based on Tahmasebi's first-person account. There is no response from ICE or DHS addressing her allegations about the family's separation, communication restrictions or conditions in detention.

'No Child Deserves This'

Tahmasebi said her son has attended school in California since pre-K and speaks only English. She wrote that he struggles to understand why the country he knows as home has detained him and that months in custody have affected the family's physical and mental well-being.

She also said the family eventually asked to leave the United States voluntarily, but alleged that the government opposed the request and indicated it would appeal an order allowing them to depart.

Tahmasebi argued that the government's position could leave the family detained for an indefinite period. However, the legal status of any request for voluntary departure, potential appeal or continuing detention would depend on the family's immigration proceedings and should not be characterised as indefinite detention unless supported by court records or an official ruling.

'We are two working-class educators who had been living a working-class life in a rented apartment,' she wrote. Tahmasebi ended her essay by arguing that her family's experience should concern other Americans, saying that if such treatment could happen to 'a law-abiding family of two professors and a young boy,' others could also be affected.

For now, the most serious allegations, including Tahmasebi's claim that the government is targeting the family because of her mother-in-law's actions nearly five decades ago, remain her account of the case. Without immigration records or a response from DHS establishing the government's legal rationale, those claims require clear attribution rather than being presented as confirmed fact.