Biography
Maryam Tahmasebi is an Iranian-born psychology and statistics professor who had lived in the United States for more than a decade as a lawful permanent resident. Federal agents detained her and her teenage son in Los Angeles in April 2026 after the State Department revoked the family’s green cards. The government tied the action to the political history of her mother-in-law, former Iranian vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar, who served as a spokesperson during the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. The family’s lawyer told the Associated Press that officials had made no specific allegation against Tahmasebi, her husband, or their son beyond the family relationship. Tahmasebi has been held at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley while challenging her detention and proposed removal through a federal habeas case. The public docket remained active in September 2026 and did not record a release.
Sources
- Associated Press — detention, stated basis, and absence of individual allegations
- Tahmasebi v. Mullin habeas docket — continuing federal challenge
- Hashemi v. Mullin habeas docket — consolidated federal challenge
Portrait provenance
The portrait is explicitly captioned as Maryam Tahmasebi in her own essay in The Nation, August 11, 2026. Credit: photo courtesy of Maryam Tahmasebi, via The Nation. Public Facebook case reporting led to this independently identified author-supplied photograph. Only black side padding was cropped from the original image; no retouching, upscaling, or generated detail.
