By Ashley Eberhardt | Fox21
(COLORADO SPRINGS) — 11 Iranian nationals who were allegedly in the country illegally were recently arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), two of them in Colorado Springs.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), one of the men arrested in Colorado Springs had been ordered to leave the country in January 1987.
DHS said on June 22, ICE officials arrested Mahmoud Shafiei and Mehrdad Mehdipour — two Iranian nationals in the U.S. illegally — who were living together. Immigration officials first encountered Shafiei in Seattle, Washington, in January 1981. A judge ordered him removed in January 1987.
According to DHS, his criminal history includes state and federal convictions for drug crimes and arrests for assault and child abuse.
Mehdipour was encountered by U.S. Border Patrol in June 2023 near Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Both men are in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
Among the other Iranian nationals arrested across the country was Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, who was ordered removed from the country after he was convicted of threatening a law enforcement officer and being an alien in possession of a firearm. Arrested alongside him was U.S. citizen Linet Vartaniann, who DHS said threatened to open fire on ICE officials if they entered her home in Tempe, Arizona, then said she would go outside and “shoot ICE officers in the head.”
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