Two sisters who were detained by border patrol agents while traveling back to the U.S. in early December fear they could be persecuted for their Christian faith if they are deported back to Iran, their pastor in Northern Virginia told News4.
“No fun in the sun when you are unlawfully present,” U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) said in a post on X on Dec. 3. The post said they were arrested and will be “processed for removal.”
The post didn’t identify the women, but their pastor, Rev. Fran Gardner-Smith, said their names are Mahan and Mozhan Motahari. They were coming back from a Thanksgiving trip to the Virgin Islands when they were arrested.
The sisters are members of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia, where they were baptized three years ago.
Gradner-Smith said when she saw the CBP post, she cried.
“They’re just kind. I mean, they are the nicest people,” she said. “It just breaks my heart to think about what they’re going through. They’re terrified.”
Gardner-Smith said the sisters secretly converted to Christianity while still living in Iran. They told her they moved to the U.S. to escape religious persecution.
“What they wanted most was to be baptized,” she said. “They couldn’t be baptized in Iran.”
Shia Islam is the official religion in Iran and it’s illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, according to a 2023 State Department report on Iran.
Possible punishments for converting include no access to education, years in prison, torture or the death penalty.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency reported at least 746 people were executed in Iran in 2023, the State Department report said. The report said some of those cases were for “ideological-political-religious reasons.”
“Yesterday in church, another Iranian was saying to me that he had friends in Iran who were Christian and they have been killed,” Gardner-Smith said. “I’m terrified about what could happen to these women.”
Parastoo Zahedi, an attorney representing the Motahari sisters, said they both have legal status, no criminal record and they had recently renewed their work permits until 2030.
Zahedi is arguing they have the right to a bond hearing while their application for asylum makes its way through court, which can often take years.
News4 reached out to CBP and ICE to ask about the sisters’ case, and their concerns about religious persecution if they’re deported back to Iran. The agencies have not yet responded.
ICE records show the sisters are being held at a detention facility in Broward County, Florida.
News4 spoke with a priest who was able to visit the two sisters for about 20 minutes on Tuesday.
He said they were very scared, but he read them messages of support from their fellow church members in Northern Virginia. They said they were grateful to know the community has been rallying around them, he said.
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