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(NewsNation) — As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to people what national officials person deemed the "worst of the worst" migrants who entered the United States illegally, the bureau is reporting an uptick successful the arrests of Iranian nationals.
ICE has arrested 130 Iranian nationals surviving illegally successful the United States successful the past week unsocial arsenic concerns turn astir imaginable sleeper cells, NewsNation has confirmed.
In summation to the caller arrests, Department of Homeland Security sources confirmed to NewsNation that 670 Iranian nationals are presently being held successful ICE detention centers. The announcement comes aft ICE said that it had arrested 11 Iranian nationals who were surviving illegally successful the United States implicit the weekend.
Among those arrested implicit the play astatine aggregate locations astir the United States were a erstwhile Iranian service sniper and different Iranian nationalist who DHS officials assertion has admitted ties to Hezbollah.
ICE Director Todd Lyons told NewsNation successful an exclusive interrogation that portion ICE is taking a holistic attack to apprehending migrants with anterior transgression convictions, the recent U.S. onslaught launched connected Iranian atomic sites has accrued the spotlight connected migrants from Iran who person made their mode into the United States.
“We’ve ever done targeted enforcement, we’ve ever focused connected high-risk countries – including Iran,” Lyons told NewsNation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons announces that his bureau took astir 1,500 immigrants into custody successful Massachusetts implicit the period of May during a quality league astatine the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse successful Boston, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)Lyons acknowledged that ICE officials cognize of a ample colonisation of known and suspected terrorists that helium says were allowed into the United States nether the Biden administration. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has instructed ICE to brushwood known migrant "gotaways" and known suspected terrorists “before thing atrocious happens.”
Iranian nationals portion of a larger counterterrorism ICE portfolio
According to information obtained by NewsNation from DHS sources, determination are presently 5,840 Iranian nationals connected ICE’s nondetained docket, with astir 1,300 of those migrants having transgression convictions. Also, 2,790 of the Iranian nationals person antecedently been ordered to permission the country, and 3,050 person pending last orders to beryllium removed.
The immense bulk of those inactive successful the United States listed Los Angeles arsenic their last destination, the DHS information shows.
But for ICE to absorption connected eliminating known information threats, Lyons said the bureau is treating each migration violator the same, careless of their state of origin.
However, arsenic ICE continues to ace down connected migrants who entered the United States illegally and stay here, different high-risk countries that airs a menace to U.S. nationalist information besides stay connected the agency’s enforcement radar. Yet, overmuch similar Tren de Aragua pack members surviving successful the United States held the nation's attraction and became a focal constituent for ICE and different national agencies, Iranian nationals person jumped into that spotlight, Lyons said.
Lyons told NewsNation that the 130 arrests made successful the past week correspond a higher percent than possibly has been normal. But with Iran and different high-profile countries being portion of a larger ICE counterterrorism portfolio of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, Lyons expects that the absorption connected targeted enforcement efforts volition continue.
“We privation to amusement the American nationalist precisely what we’re doing,” Lyons told NewsNation. “While you whitethorn spot an uptick successful Iranian arrests, you’re going to spot an uptick successful Syrian arrests, Somalis, anyone that airs that nationalist information threat, you volition spot ICE retired determination and we volition publicize it due to the fact that we privation the American nationalist to cognize that they voted for this nether this medication and that this is what the men and women of ICE are doing to guarantee that they’re safe.”
