Marco Rubio kicks out Soleimani’s pro-Iran niece and grand-niece

 by Andrea Widburg

It’s a pretty rare post that garners over two million views in just a couple of hours, but Marco Rubio did it with a tweet he published today. His message was simple: He’s kicked out Qasem Soleimani’s niece and grandniece, who have been living in America while spouting pro-Iranian, anti-American rhetoric. This should be a no-brainer, but in America, for too long, it hasn’t been:

Here’s the tweet:

Picking up at the ellipses:

... Americans and referred to our country as the "Great Satan."

This week, I terminated both Afshar and her daughter's legal status and they are now in ICE custody, pending removal from the United States.

The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.

The State Department press release that Rubio links to his tweet expands on Afshar’s activities:

While living in the United States, she promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the “Great Satan,” and voiced her unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization. Afshar Soleimani pushed this propaganda for Iran’s terrorist regime while enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, as attested to by her frequent posting on her recently deleted Instagram account.

The same press release reminds us that Rubio’s State Department also deported two other Iranian regime insiders:

Earlier this month, Secretary Rubio also terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi are no longer in the United States and are barred from future entry.

To appreciate how sensible this is, imagine if Heinrich Himmler’s niece and grand-niece or Hermann Göring’s daughter and son-in-law lived here during World War II and were constantly spouting pro-Nazi propaganda, calling America an evil, mongrel nation, and celebrating each American death in battle. It’s almost too laughable even to imagine.

Normal nations may provide refuge to family members who have turned against a famed relative’s evil ideology. They don’t host family members who are major mouthpieces for that same ideology, especially during a time of war.

There are several examples, with the most famous being Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter. In 1966, while visiting India to scatter her Indian partner’s ashes, a man the Soviet authorities refused to let her marry, she walked into the U.S. Embassy and asked for asylum. It was quite the Cold War coup. Over the years, while she never fell in love with America, Alliluyeva was a harsh critic of the Soviet system and emphasized individual liberty.

Then there’s Alina Fernández, Fidel Castro’s daughter. She fled Cuba in 1993 and settled in Miami. She, like the rest of Florida’s Cuban ex-patriot community, has been outspokenly critical of the Cuban regime and is very pro-American.

Other relatives of despotic dictators have settled in the West. Hussein Kamel, who was Saddam’s son-in-law, defected to the West and helped fight the regime. Noor bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s relatives, is famously pro-Western and pro-American. Kim Jong-nam, a member of North Korea’s ruling family, escaped and is critical of North Korea’s dictatorship.

But for some reason, we took in Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, who loathes America and shills for Iran, which has been a major geopolitical enemy since 1979. What kind of verkakte country are we to host our enemies’ anti-American children?

What makes Marco Rubio a fantastic Secretary of State is that he’s not cowed by the leftist establishment. The fact that the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or any of those other Democrat outlets will be upset that he cast out someone who was, they will surely claim, just exercising freedom of speech, doesn’t bother him. He recognizes when something is a danger to America—something he has the legal authority to fix—and he acts.

I have to say, my informal polling of every conservative I meet always yields the same answer to this question: “What do you think of Marco Rubio?” “He’s great.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/04/marco_rubio_kicks_out_soleimani_s_pro_iran_daughter_and_granddaughter.html