Iranian mother released from ICE detention after Republican House Majority Leader intervenes

NEW ORLEANS — An Iranian mother detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers has been released this week following advocacy from Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Mandonna ''Donna'' Kashanian, 64, was detained by ICE officers last month as she gardened in the yard of her New Orleans home. She had been living in the United States for 47 years, and her husband and daughter are both U.S. citizens.

Kashanian had been allowed to stay in the U.S. as long as she checked in regularly with immigration authorities, as she had done without fail, her family and attorney said.

After a surge of community support for Kashanian, Scalise, who represents Louisiana's 1st Congressional District, including the New Orleans suburbs, told media outlet WDSU that he asked the Department of Homeland Security to give Kashanian ''a fair shake.''

Scalise said Kashanian should be judged on ''her life's work'' and role in her community.

''When she was picked up, we looked at it and said, ‘Are they really looking at it the right way, objectively?''' Scalise told WDSU. ''And so they took a second look at it.''

Scalise's office did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.

Scalise's intervention was ''absolutely crucial'' to behind-the-scenes advocacy to secure Kashanian's release, her attorney Ken Mayeaux told The Associated Press. What happens next for Kashanian's legal status is still being worked out, he said.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement that ''the facts of this case have not changed.''

''Mandonna Kashanian is in this country illegally,'' McLaughlin said. ''She exhausted all her legal options.''

Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, a Republican who represents Kashanian's community, said she had been a ''devoted mother and wife, a caretaker, neighbor and dedicated volunteer'' with Habitat for Humanity, her local school district and other organizations.

More than 100 of Kashanian's neighbors wrote letters of support for her, which Hilferty told the AP she and Scalise had shared with President Donald Trump's administration.

''She's just been an incredible volunteer and servant to our Lakeview community, everybody knows her because of all she gives and does,'' said Connie Uddo, a neighbor of Kashanian's who leads the NOLA Tree Project where Kashanian and her husband have volunteered for years.

Some neighbors wrote letters addressed to Trump expressing support for his immigration policies but saying that some people like Kashanian were being detained improperly and urging him to reconsider her case.

Kashanian had arrived in the U.S. in 1978 on a student visa and unsuccessfully applied for asylum based on her father's support of the U.S.-backed shah.

ICE New Orleans said in a June post on the social platform X that Kashanian had failed to depart the U.S. after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a deportation order in 1992.

''She was ordered by a judge to depart the U.S. and didn't,'' the agency said. ''Shouldn't be a surprise we came knocking.''

But Kashanian was allowed to remain with her husband and child as long as she checked in regularly with immigration authorities, her family said. For decades, she had ''faithfully and fully complied with those terms,'' said Mayeaux, her attorney. She even managed to check in with authorities while displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Kashanian met her husband, Russell Milne while bartending as a student in the late 1980s. She filmed Persian cooking tutorials on YouTube and doted on the neighboring children.

Milne told the AP his family was ''extremely grateful'' for all the support from their community and elected officials.

''She's meeting her obligations,'' Milne told the AP following her detention. ''She's retirement age. She's not a threat. Who picks up a grandmother?''

Other Iranians living in the U.S. for decades have also been picked up by immigration authorities, and U.S. military strikes on Iran have raised concerns that more may be taken into custody and deported. Iran was one of 12 countries subject to a U.S. travel ban that took effect this month.

Immigration authorities are seeking to arrest 3,000 people a day under directives from the Trump administration.

Kashanian's attorney Mayeaux said he represents other clients who had built lives in the U.S. over decades and are now being detained and deported.

''There is still a tremendous amount of heartache that is happening for people,'' Mayeaux said. "The difference is they lived quiet lives and didn't have access to political power to change the outcomes in their cases."

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.