The State Department announced on Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “took action this week to revoke the privilege of Iranian senior officials and their family members to be in the United States,” as a consequence of Iran’s bloody crackdown on protesters this month.
“Those who profit from the Iranian regime’s brutal oppression are not welcome to benefit from our immigration system,” the State Department said.
“Important step. Well done, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rubio. Long overdue,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI.) Brodsky noted that his organization has “long advocated this step.”
President Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, applauded Rubio’s action. “The families of Iranian regime elites live lives of luxury in the U.S. while their people are massacred. Not any more!” he declared.
Waltz was apparently alluding to the controversy that erupted in January when Iranian American activists began circulating petitions calling for the U.S. to deport the relatives of senior Iranian officials.
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The petitions named two individuals in particular: Eissa Hashemi, 43, son of Islamic Revolution spokeswoman Masoumeh Ebtekar, and Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, whose father Ali Larijani is secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Larijani was an outspoken proponent of the savage crackdown that killed thousands of Iranian civilians to put down the uprising in January.
Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani was an assistant professor at the prestigious Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University in Georgia until this week, when the university announced she was “no longer an employee.”
The State Department on Friday announced sanctions against “six Iranian officials who oversee the Iranian security forces responsible for the violent crackdowns on protesters, as well as an Iranian investor who embezzled billions in funds from the Iranian people.”
“As the Iranian people protest 47 years of catastrophic economic mismanagement, the regime continues to choose funding terrorist militias abroad and its vast weapons programs over the basic needs of everyday Iranians,” said State Department spokesman Thomas Pigott.
“The people of Iran suffer from rising inflation, crumbling infrastructure, and shortages of water and electricity because the regime is squandering their wealth on its malign activities,” he said.
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The State Department also demanded Iran overturn the death sentence against Saleh Mohammadi, 19, a wrestling champion arrested for supporting the protests this month.
“The regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran is massacring young people and destroying Iran’s future. We call on the Iranian regime to halt the execution of Saleh Mohammadi and all those sentenced to death for exercising their fundamental rights,” the State Department said.
The European Union (EU) further angered the Iranian regime by designating its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization on Thursday. The first Trump administration designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in April 2019.
“The illogical, irresponsible and spite-driven action of the European Union has undoubtedly been taken in unquestioning obedience to the hegemonic and anti-human policies of the United States and the Zionist regime,” howled General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces in a statement on Thursday.
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