Last week, our editor Bob Hoge wrote about the Biden administration’s release of at least 700 Iranian nationals into our interior, and according to ICE records, thousands more were encountered. Hoge also wrote about the Iranian mullahs’ threat to unleash sleeper cells who are already embedded in our country.
The mullahs threatened they could awaken terrorist “sleeper cells” in the U.S. should we attack them. Well, now we have attacked them—in extraordinary fashion, no less—and multiple cities are on heightened alert for possible violent responses.
What if some potential terrorists were let in by an administration that refused to police its borders or deal with illegal immigrants? That could very well be the case, because former President Joe Biden’s regime encountered thousands of Iranian nationals at the border during his term—and let over 700 of them loose.
While the sleeper cells are still a looming threat, ICE has been doing what it can to deal with the Iranian illegals who have not only entered the country or overstayed their visas, but who have thumbed their noses at any attempt to remove them. They are a known commodity, and ICE is laser-focused on prying them from their hiding places.
Hoge further reported on the late June arrests of 11 Iranian nationals all across the U.S. Among them was Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, who illegally entered California’s porous border in June of 2012, during the age of “Hope and Change.”
ICE Nabs Over a Dozen Iranian Nationals As Concern Over Sleeper Cells Deepens
In August 2013, an immigration judge granted Eidivand a voluntary departure, meaning he could self-deport without ICE’s intervention. Surprise, surprise, he not only never left, but he parked himself in Tempe, Arizona, and fought any attempts at deportation. Eidivand even managed to take a wife, and she doubled down on her husband’s arrogance by threatening to “shoot ICE officers in the head,” as the arrest bulletin detailed.
This is what decades of loosey goosey immigration policy get you: People simply become entitled and emboldened, and Eidivand and Vartannivartanians are the poster children of both. But it’s a new administration and a new day. President Donald Trump and Tom Homan are actually enforcing immigration law, not giving illegals a pass. After being arrested on June 22, two days later, Eidivand and Vartannivartanians have been indicted: he on an illegal alien weapons possession charge, and she for threatening a federal officer.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment June 24 against Iranian national, Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, 40, of Tempe, Arizona for alien in possession of a firearm, and against his wife, Linet Vartaniann, 37, a U.S. citizen from Tempe, Arizona, for threatening to assault a federal officer. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI are conducting the investigation in this case.
Documents filed in the case allege that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers went to Eidivand and Vartaniann’s Tempe residence on Saturday, June 21, to administratively arrest Eidivand for failing to comply with a 2013 removal order. Eidivand had challenged the removal order on several occasions, but the Board of Immigration Appeals denied those motions repeatedly. Despite the court order to return to his home country, Eidivand remained in the U.S. over a decade.
When ICE ERO officers arrived at the couple’s residence, they announced themselves and were answered by Vartaniann, who refused to open the door and told the officers to return with a warrant. Shortly thereafter, Tempe Police officers arrived on the scene and told ICE ERO that Vartaniann had called the police and threatened to shoot the federal officers. She claimed that she had a loaded gun and that she would shoot anyone who tried to come inside the house. She also threatened to go outside and shoot ICE officers in the head. When the police dispatcher spoke with Eidivand, he confirmed that there were guns in the home.
The following day, June 22, special agents with ICE Homeland Security Investigations and officers from ICE ERO executed a federal search warrant on the residence. Inside the home, agents found a loaded firearm on the kitchen counter and a second loaded firearm on a nightstand. Both Vartaniann and Eidivand were arrested at the scene and taken into custody without further incident.
A conviction for alien in possession of a firearm carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, or both. A conviction for threatening to assault a federal officer carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, or both.
To be honest, I don’t want to see this “Couple of the Year” in prison. Eidivand and Vartannivartanians should be deported back to Iran and dumped smack dab in the middle of Fordow. They could use the help with the rubble cleanup.
While the threat of sleeper cells is legitimate, they may not be the true danger. The real danger is the Iranian illegal aliens who have parked themselves in our country and are living well off America’s largesse and daring you to object, while waving their middle finger in the face of immigration law. These folks are right out in the open and should be snatched up and dealt with posthaste. They are a contagion in and of themselves.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left’s lies, new legislation wasn’t needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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