Donna Kashanian (Facebook)
An Iranian woman taken from her New Orleans home by ICE agents last month is back home.
Masked men wearing tactical gear took Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian, 64, from her home on June 22nd while she was gardening.
It happened in the wake of the U.S. bombing Iranian targets.
Kashanian was set to be deported to Iran; but on Monday, she was released following national outcry and outreach from elected officials from both parties, including New Orleans Republican State Representative Stephanie Hilferty.
“I offered to help gather letters of support from the community,” said Rep. Hilferty. “I was able to get those letters to Congressman (Steve) Scalise’s office, and he was able to get those to the administration.”
Hilferty says those letters of support described how much of an upstanding member of the community Kashanian is.
“She’s very involved in the community,” Hilferty says; “multiple different organizations, (including) Habitat for Humanity, NOLA Tree Project. People that knew her from her daughter’s school and volunteering with the parent-teacher organization there.”
Kashanian first came to the U.S. in 1978 on a student visa.
Before her visa expired, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which also led to the captivity of 52 American hostages for 444 days and the ending of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Iran that remain severed to this day.
With Iran now an unsafe country for her to return to, Kashanian sought to remain in the U.S. legally through applying for asylum and marriages, including an ill-fated marriage in the early 1980s that she has acknowledged was under false pretenses as a way to remain in the U.S., which was quite common during the Cold War era.
Kashanian was allowed to remain in the U.S. legally as long as she regularly checked in with immigration officials, which she never failed to do.
Kashanian also does not have a criminal record.
Legal experts say that sham marriage has prevented Kashanian from gaining citizenship or permanent legal status, despite her legitimate marriage to her current husband since 1990, Russ Milne, with whom she has raised a daughter.
Kashanian’s capture by ICE agents last month was an ordeal not just for her family, but also for the entire community.
“It was a loss to the community,” Hilferty says. “And so I think everyone’s happy to see her back home.”
Once Milne and his daughter got word that ICE was releasing Kashanian, they drove to Basile, picked her up and drove her home.
Hilferty says now that Kashanian is back home, she wants to make sure she stays home.
“This is an opportunity for her to begin the path to citizenship,” says Hilferty, “and I know she’s working with an attorney on that.”
Congressman Scalise has said in previous media interviews that while he can’t promise any final outcomes, he will work to make sure that Kashanian will have a much more fair hearing than what she had been afforded in the past and that what had happened more than 40 years ago won’t count against her, since factors that existed back then no longer exist today.
The family released a statement earlier this week.
“We are overjoyed to have Donna back home with her family. She is doing well and happy to be home. We are grateful to Congressman Scalise, State Rep. Hilferty, Councilmember (Joseph) Giarrusso, our beloved community, and our local officials for helping our family navigate this process to ensure Donna was treated fairly. We look forward to continuing to work through the process on our efforts for her to become a citizen of our great country.”
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