The Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS) expresses concern over the detention and attempted removal from the United States of lawful permanent residents Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Dr. Maryam Tahmasebi, and their teenage son. CCS emphasizes that individuals should be held responsible only for their own actions and should not face punishment based on the conduct or political activities of relatives. The family members are American educators with no publicly known criminal records, yet they were detained separately in April, reportedly in connection with Hashemi’s mother’s role during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, which occurred before his birth. CCS argues that immigration and security decisions should be based on evidence of an individual’s own conduct rather than ancestry, family relationships, or political associations. CCS therefore urges the authorities to reconsider the family’s case, ensure due process, and release them from detention unless there is independent evidence that a member poses a genuine security or flight risk.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgjeped6ewxo
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Marco Rubio
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Rubio:
The Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS) writes to express its profound concern over the detention and attempted removal from the United States of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Dr. Maryam Tahmasebi, and their teenage son, lawful permanent residents of the United States.
CCS has for decades defended scientists, scholars, physicians, and other academics persecuted by authoritarian governments because of their beliefs, associations, or family connections. We therefore find it especially troubling when the principle of individual responsibility — the principle that a person must be judged by his or her own conduct — is compromised here in the United States.
We wish to make one point particularly clear. We stand in solidarity with the many Iranian Americans who have courageously opposed the repression of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their anger toward a regime responsible for grave violations of human rights is understandable. Nor do we seek to excuse or minimize the actions of Masoumeh Ebtekar, Eissa Hashemi’s mother, including her prominent role as spokesperson for the militants who seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats hostage in 1979.
But opposition to an oppressive regime cannot justify transferring responsibility for the actions of that regime — or of a particular member of it — to that person’s children and grandchildren.
Dr. Tahmasebi and Mr. Hashemi are American educators. Dr. Tahmasebi taught psychology and statistics at Los Angeles Pierce College, while Mr. Hashemi has taught and mentored doctoral students in business psychology. According to the information available to us, neither has a criminal record. Their son has spent virtually his entire remembered life in the United States and attended California schools from an early age.
Yet in April their lives were abruptly overturned. Mr. Hashemi was detained, followed the next day by the detention of Dr. Tahmasebi and their teenage son. The family was separated: Dr. Tahmasebi and her son were taken to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, while Mr. Hashemi was confined separately at the South Texas Detention Center in Pearsall.
Most disturbing is the apparent basis for these extraordinary actions. Your public statements announcing the termination of their lawful permanent resident status focused on Mr. Hashemi’s relationship to his mother and her activities during the Iranian hostage crisis — events that occurred before Mr. Hashemi was born. We are unaware of any publicly disclosed allegation that Dr. Tahmasebi, Mr. Hashemi, or their son personally engaged in terrorism, espionage, violence, criminal activity, or activity on behalf of the Iranian government.
Punishment on the basis of ancestry or family relationship is fundamentally contrary to American principles. The United States does not recognize inherited political guilt. A son is not responsible for the actions of his mother, a wife for those of her mother-in-law, or a child for those of his grandmother.
We are also troubled by reports that agitation within parts of the Iranian diaspora contributed to demands that this family and other Iranian Americans be investigated or expelled because of their relatives. Iranian Americans have every right to expose and condemn officials of the Islamic Republic and to demand accountability for individuals who themselves participated in repression. But accusations based principally on kinship cross a dangerous line. The United States should resist such campaigns rather than allow them to become a basis for governmental action.
This distinction is particularly important at a moment of intense hostility between the United States and the Iranian regime. We can stand firmly with Iranians who oppose dictatorship while standing just as firmly against guilt by bloodline in America. Indeed, these positions arise from the same principle: individuals should not be subjected to arbitrary state power without evidence of their own wrongdoing.
Dr. Tahmasebi has described months of detention, separation from her husband, interruption of her son’s education, and serious deterioration in the family’s well-being. Whatever immigration questions the government believes must be adjudicated, prolonged confinement of an academic family — including a teenage child — on the basis of an asserted foreign-policy concern rooted primarily in family association is extraordinarily difficult to reconcile with the traditions of due process and individual responsibility that distinguish a democratic society from the authoritarian systems we condemn.
We therefore respectfully urge you to reconsider and withdraw the determination directed against the Tahmasebi-Hashemi family insofar as it rests on familial association rather than their own conduct, and to permit their immigration status to be determined through ordinary procedures based solely upon evidence concerning them as individuals. We further urge the appropriate authorities to release the family from detention while those proceedings are resolved, absent evidence that any member personally presents a genuine security or flight risk.
Secretary Rubio, America is strongest when it refuses to adopt the logic of the regimes it opposes. The Iranian government has repeatedly punished people for their families, associations, and supposed inherited political loyalties. The United States should demonstrate a different standard.
We respectfully ask you to ensure that Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son are judged for who they are and what they themselves have done — not for who their mother and grandmother is.
Sincerely,
Joel L. Lebowitz, Walter Reich, Eugene M. Chudnovsky, Alexander Greer
Co-Chairs, Committee of Concerned Scientists
Cc:
The Honorable Markwayne Mullin
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
David J. Venturella
Acting Director
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
500 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20536
Representative Brad Sherman
2365 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Senator Alex Padilla
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Adam B. Schiff
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510