TWO Iranian Christian sisters detained by immigration officials in the United States under threat of deportation fear imprisonment and worse if they are returned to Iran, their parish priest has said.
The women, Mahan, 38, and Mozan Motahari, 31, came to the US and were baptised at St Thomas’s Episcopal Church, McLean, in Virginia, in 2022. They were joyful at “finally being able to practise their faith in the open”, the parish priest, the Revd Fran Gardner-Smith, told Religion News Service. She said that the women had been heavily involved in church life for the past three years.
Conversion to Christianity from Islam is treated as apostasy in Iran, and converts face arrest and imprisonment, hence their coming to the US. Yet, despite President Trump’s avowed support for Christians facing persecution, his administration has sent converts back to Iran, as part of its sweeping immigration crackdown. On Sunday, a flight took off deporting about 50 Iranians; another left in October. At least 15 Iranian Christian converts were said to have been on board.
The two Motahari sisters were arrested at an airport in the US Virgin Islands while on holiday over the Thanksgiving period. A photo of them was posted on social media by the US Customers and Border Protection. The post read: “No fun in the sun when you are unlawfully present. . . the two women were arrested and transported to be processed for removal.”
The women’s lawyer, Parastoo Zahedi, said that the women were not in the US illegally and were allowed to stay in the US while their asylum claim was being processed. She was concerned by the social-media post, which had breached the sisters’ confidentiality and put their lives at further risk.
“What bothered me more than anything else is that they’re seeking asylum protection from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I first saw the sharing of their information on Iranian social-media sites,” she said. “Now, there are pictures of them without hijab, and it’s now common knowledge that they are in the US seeking asylum.”
The congregation of St Thomas’s is praying daily for the Motahari sisters. It includes a sizeable number of Iranians. Ms Gardner-Smith said that the sisters’ family was very scared. She called the sisters “amazing women”, whose sudden detention defied logic. “This all makes no sense to me,” she said.
The sisters are being held in Broward Transitional Center, a federal detention facility in Florida. She is trying to get into the site to visit them.
“We are praying for a swift, just resolution that protects our sisters’ dignity and faith,” she told ENS. “We long for them to be returned to their family and to our community. The church is the body of Christ and ours is incomplete without them present.”