Iranian LSU students released after 'ruse' arrest
July 18 (UPI) -- Two Iranian graduate students in Louisiana have been released from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement custody after lawyers took issue with ICE agents using a "ruse" to "lure" them outside to be arrested.
The couple was released this week and all proceedings against them dropped after their lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the procedure surrounding the June 22 arrest at an off-campus apartment in Baton Rouge, La.
ICE agents enlisted the help of the Louisiana State Police to convince Pouria Pourhosseinhendabad and Parisa Firouzabadi they were there to speak to the mechanical engineering students about a hit-and-run reported the two had reported weeks earlier.
When the married couple stepped outside to show police their vehicle, they were taken into custody and later challenged the detention in immigration court.
Pourhosseinhendabad and Firouzabadi are both doctoral students at Louisiana State University, having arrived in the United States in 2023. Both are legally allowed to remain in the country, although Firouzabadi's student visa was not formally renewed.
"There's a significant problem with how the two of them were arrested, because there were no exigent circumstances that required any type of Ruse," ACLU of Louisiana Legal Director Nora Ahmed told WBRZ-TV in an interview.
Ahmed said ICE agents at the time came only with an administrative warrant that does not require a person to permit law enforcement entry into a dwelling.
She said the federal officials could easily have obtained the necessary judicial warrant that would have made the arrest permissible.
"So, it appears that there was some type of desire not to get that judicial warrant to enter the home, but they could have done that because there were no exigent circumstances that required them to enter the home," Ahmen said.
Pourhosseinhendabad and Firouzabadi were arrested after an anonymous tip to ICE, The Illuminator reported.
Court documents uploaded weeks after the arrest show the reason for the detention as visa-related, noting that Firouzabadi was deportable because of a lack of renewal. Pourhosseinhendabad's visa remains current. The two were held in separate detention centers in Mississippi.
The arrest came a day after U.S. warplanes attacked three Iranian military sites linked to enriched uranium.
Days later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security warned of a "heightened threat environment" because of the attacks on Iran.
"There's still a visa revocation charge on her (Firouzabadi) updated document, but we no longer see any suggestion of espionage or sabotage," Ahmed told WBRZ-TV.
"That's also deeply concerning because it would suggest that there was bombing, arrest, an attempt at justification, and then a review as to whether those charges could stand, and then a retraction of that, but it takes days for any of that to occur."
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