The Brief

For three immigration judges, the day took a similar turn.

Kyra Lilien, who was hired in 2023, was presiding in a courtroom in Concord, Calif., in July when she paused the hearing of an immigrant seeking asylum to read an email.

"I told them that we were not going to have a hearing because I had just been fired," Lilien said. Present in the court was a court interpreter and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. "They asked me if I was joking."

Anam Petit, who was hired as an immigration judge in 2023 after a career in immigrant defense, was sitting on the bench in her courtroom in Virginia's Annandale Immigration Court in September. It was her two-year anniversary in the position and she was between hearings when she got the email.

"My voice was shaking. My hands were shaking. My mind was racing. And I gave the decision and I dismissed everyone without mentioning anything," Petit said. One decision that day was to deny asylum, and the other was a partial denial, each for a different member of one immigrant family, she recalled.

Tania Nemer was hired as a judge at the Cleveland immigration court in 2023. She had about 30 or 40 immigrants, a DHS attorney and staff in her court one morning in February. She had just finished explaining rights and responsibilities to the group when her door opened and her manager asked her to come with him. She was later escorted out of the building.

"I didn't know at all why I was being fired at the time. And I kept asking; no one had a reason," Nemer said.

Nemer was one of the first immigration judges fired by the Trump administration after a slew of dismissals of leaders at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the branch of the Justice Department that houses immigration courts. Later that month, the administration fired 12 judges — an entire incoming class that had just been trained and was about to take the bench.

Those dismissals come as the administration has ramped up mass deportations of those without legal status, and sometimes pointed to judges as obstacles in that effort.

The pattern has been consistent. Every few months this year, a new class of judges gets termination notices in the middle of the day, often while they are in the middle of immigration court proceedings. The notices often target those who have reached the end of their two-year probationary period, a trial period for federal workers before they are "converted" to permanent employees. It was previously common for these civil servants to be converted to permanent employees of the DOJ.

"None of us have been given an explanation, we are in the dark, but we've been trying to ascertain patterns," Lilien said, the former judge in northern California. She wonders if her past experience representing immigrants got her fired, even though she also worked at DHS as an asylum officer.

Her hunch has some correlation with the data. NPR has independently identified 70 immigration judges who received termination notices from the Trump administration between February and October. The number of judges who received termination letters matches the tally kept by the immigration judges' union. It also accords with NPR's past coverage of the terminations.

The count does not include assistant chief immigration judges (ACIJ), who are courthouse supervisors and also have their own dockets. The union has counted 11 ACIJs terminated.

An analysis of each of the 70 immigration judges' professional backgrounds found that judges with backgrounds defending immigrants, and no prior work history at DHS, made up about 44% of the firings — more than double the share of those who had only prior work history at DHS.

NPR also analyzed the classes of judges onboarded between February 2023 and November 2024, who would have neared the ends of their probationary periods this year or are still in the probationary period. Of those judges, those who had prior DHS experience, including working as asylum officers and as attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made up the largest share still on the bench.

NPR reached out to the DOJ, EOIR and the White House for a comment on the firings and NPR's findings. The press staff at EOIR is furloughed due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, according to automatic email replies, though immigration courts are still operational. The White House referred questions to the DOJ.

"DOJ doesn't 'target' or 'prioritize' immigration judges for any personnel decision one way or the other based on prior experience," a DOJ spokesperson told NPR in a statement. "DOJ continually evaluates all immigration judges, regardless of background, on factors such as conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism."

The spokesperson added that, "pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, IJs (Immigration Judges) are inferior officers who are appointed and removed by the Attorney General."

The spokesperson disputed the 70 count, saying the agency has terminated fewer than 55 judges, but was unable to provide more details. The agency's number is inconsistent with other news reports, NPR's prior reporting and the union. NPR reached out to reconcile the numbers. The DOJ spokesperson said staff have been furloughed and the Justice Department is not able to confirm their data.

Folders containing documents related to immigration cases are piled on a table in the office of Stephen Born, Esq. on July 31, 2025 in Everett, Mass.

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Meredith Nierman

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Employees search for reasons

Fired judges have been grasping at straws to understand why they were fired — some have filed Freedom of Information Act requests. Others have turned to wrongful termination complaints and lawsuits. Some worry they were targeted on the basis of protected classes, such as gender or race.

"I fit the bill," said Nemer, who had represented immigrants prior to becoming an immigration judge. Nemer listed off characteristics cited in a lawsuit she has filed, arguing she was fired based on various protected classes.

"It's hard to know without having the explanations of why judges were fired," said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on immigration policy. "But the way the Trump administration is approaching immigration courts reflects a really high prioritization of immigration enforcement and [the administration] has really made deportations this whole-of-government effort."

Immigration judges approve or deny a final order of deportation. Court officials have placed pressure on judges to move through their dockets faster, including by reviewing asylum cases without hearings.

Each fired judge can leave behind thousands of cases, according to several interviews with fired judges throughout the year. Each case is an immigrant who has likely already waited years for their day in court, to make the case for why they should be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Many of these cases have now been reassigned to other judges, at the bottom of their already years-long dockets. Immigrants whose cases were already in progress, or set to be reviewed soon, now have new dates as far out as 2029.

There were 700 immigration judges at the start of the year. Over the past 10 months, EOIR has lost more than 125 judges to firings and voluntary resignations. Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress approved a spending bill that allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including the hiring of more immigration judges, to address the backlog of millions of cases at immigration court.

Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in June 2025 in New York City.

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Spencer Platt

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Fear of retribution

Probationary judges aren't the only ones who have been fired under the Trump administration. NPR tracked 12 fired judges who started prior to 2023. This means they were fired after their two-year probationary period.

Some have been left wondering if their firings were retribution for the decisions they made on the bench.

Shira Levine had worked for EOIR since 2021 before being fired in September. She was presiding over a hearing for an immigrant who had already waited more than five years for a day in court when she got the email.

"People looked surprised, but no one looked shocked," Levine said. "That's because, unfortunately, this by that point had become a pattern." She said she didn't expect to be removed since she had passed her two-year mark. She was never given a reason.

Levine, like several others, received a standard email that they were being terminated pursuant to Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the executive the power to dismiss federal employees.

Levine thought she might have been dismissed because of her response to some recent Trump administration policies.

During the summer months, immigration judges had already had to contend with an outsized enforcement presence in normally empty courtroom hallways. ICE attorneys — who argue on behalf of a government that an immigrant should be deported — started more regularly filing "motions to dismiss" cases. When a judge granted such a motion, migrants would be detained before leaving the building.

Levine said such motions should be granted if there is a change in the individual migrant's case, not a change in immigration policy.

"I was not told it was because of my decision to deny the motion to dismiss that I was fired," Levine said. "But I handed down a decision that contravened what they apparently wanted the judges to do."

Others, like Ila Deiss or Emmett Soper, who had been immigration judges since 2017 and 2016, served as career officials at the DOJ for nearly two decades.

Soper had been with EOIR since graduating law school in a variety of other roles. He doesn't know if his firing had anything to do with past policy work under the Biden administration's EOIR director or his handling of cases as a judge.

As the Trump administration brings in new people to the bench, he has concerns over the loss of experienced judges.

"You have to be able to manage your courtroom and you have to make very difficult, sometimes life-or-death decisions, with the person whose life is going to be affected and the family members sometimes right in front of you," Soper said.

"It's not something that you pick up right away. And with all of these judges — many of whom are very experienced — being fired, the agency is losing something that will take a long time to get back, if they ever can."

People wait outside an immigration court and ICE field office on Oct. 24, 2025, in San Francisco.

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Prior political interference

The agency is prioritizing other judges to hire.

The Trump administration has moved to bring back immigration judges it sees as unfairly fired by the Biden administration. The Justice Department, in a February memo, said that it cannot be confident the Biden administration was ethical and lawful in how it dismissed immigration judges and other adjudicators.

A handful of judges in 2022 had not been converted to permanent employment, sparking GOP outrage over what lawmakers saw as political interference.

Earlier this year, Matthew O'Brien and David White, two of those judges let go under President Joe Biden, were reinstated at immigration courts in Virginia. O'Brien was brought back to a managerial position, as NPR previously reported — though he is no longer with EOIR. White is a judge at the Falls Church court.

The Justice Department appointed a new director of EOIR, Daren Margolin, in October. Margolin has previous experience as the assistant chief immigration judge, or courthouse supervisor, throughout multiple courts in California, and a background as a military and DHS lawyer. He had been fired from a command position at a Marine base for negligently firing a gun and had left EOIR in 2024 before returning to lead the agency.

Then the DOJ last month announced its first class of 2025, which included 25 temporary judges who are military lawyers.

"EOIR is restoring its integrity as a preeminent administrative adjudicatory agency," the announcement states. "These new immigration judges are joining an immigration judge corps that is committed to upholding the rule of law."

The incoming class of permanent judges comprises mostly those with a background in federal government work, including EOIR itself and the Department of Homeland Security. Their previous jobs included training Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents, serving as asylum officers and working for ICE's legal arm.

One judge was originally going to take the bench at the start of the year, but was among the initial class of judges fired before they could start. None of the incoming judges appear to have previously worked in the field of immigrant defense based on EOIR's announcement.

Immigration judges' backgrounds vary over time

In recent years, immigration judges' backgrounds have varied. Many came to the position after several years working for ICE's legal branch. Others became judges after working for immigrant defense nonprofits or in private practice. Some have no immigration law experience, which was previously a requirement for temporary judges but not for permanent ones.

When immigration courts were first established, it was more common for immigration judges to have an enforcement background, said Dana Leigh Marks, a former immigration judge and immigration attorney who litigated landmark immigration cases before the Supreme Court.

Marks joined the court in 1987, when courts were still under the former Immigration and Naturalization Service branch of the DOJ.

"Frankly, I was one of the individuals who was hired to show that it wasn't just a career path of prosecution that led you to be eligible to be an immigration judge," Marks said.

That push for professional diversification carried through the Biden administration. That administration selected as immigration judges not just immigration attorneys, but also criminal defense attorneys, other administrative judges across the federal government, and those with military experience, as it sought to diversify the perspectives of those interpreting the complicated set of immigration laws.

Marks said that the president and his cabinet will continue to affect personnel decisions as long as these courts stay in the executive branch.

"It's common sense that the boss of the prosecutor should not be the boss of the judge," Marks said, recalling the fight to keep immigration courts separate from immigration enforcement when DHS was created in 2002. Enforcement, which is primarily ICE, was separated from the DOJ.

—NPR's Rahul Mukherjee contributed to data analysis for this story.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Roughly three years after above-average rainfall fueled a devastating landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes, the landscape has become almost unrecognizable. Homes, ripped apart by the land movement, have been wiped away, creating swaths of unusable open space. Trying to slow the landslide has pushed the city to the financial brink.

But also caught in the landslide’s crosshairs is a beloved seaside network of trails that continues to be pulled apart and will never be the same.

The area was once green rolling hills offering spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Now, much of the land is riddled with 20-foot chasms, some of which span 12 feet.

For decades, land movement was minimal. But above-average rainfall in 2022 and 2023 rapidly accelerated — up to 1 foot per week in some places — prompting Southern California Edison and SoCalGas to shut off utilities for hundreds of residents.

Landslide damage has closed dozens of trails in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes on April 4.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Landslide damage has closed dozens of trails in the Portuguese Bend community area of Rancho Palos Verdes on April 4.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Land movement has since slowed to about 1.6 inches a week, thanks in part to wells the city installed that suck water out of the ground, but damage to the around 16 miles of trails remains and will likely never be abated.

"We don't traverse those areas on a regular basis. We occasionally use drones to look at the damage,” said Ara Mihranian, Rancho Palos Verdes’ city manager. “You can't get across certain trails, so if we even went down into a certain area, we wouldn't be able to continue because of the open fissures in the ground.”

William Lavoie of the Palos Verdes South Bay group of the Sierra Club has hiked trails in the 1,500 acre-Palos Verdes Nature Reserve once a week for about 25 years. Before the city closed off the area, he said he saw a telephone pole “ tipping at about a 30-degree angle.”

Landslides resulted in a home being severely damaged in Rancho Palos Verdes on April 4.

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“ I understand why they closed the trails because there were some pretty good-sized fissures,” he said. “It would be very sad if somebody broke a leg or twisted an ankle or broke an ankle.”

The effects on nature

But the destruction hasn’t been a total loss.

The California gnatcatcher, a small songbird that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls “threatened” and the endangered Palos Verdes blue butterfly rely on certain host plants within the preserve.

“ The habitat that supports the wildlife has been fragmented, has been damaged with fissures opening up in the ground, splitting apart. Coastal sage scrub has actually been sucked in by the fissures,” Mihranian said. “That impacts the corridors and the wildlife patterns that you see out in the preserve.”

But Cris Sarabia, conservation director for the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, said the species can also benefit from less human activity.

“ Both of those endangered species have wings so they could essentially fly,” he said. “So the fissures on the trails or the cracks in the ground don't necessarily cause big impacts to them because they're able to move around.”

Sarabia said his organization is also tracking the cactus wren bird that resides in a cactus found within the landslide area.

“ We have been working closely with the different entities doing the [mitigation] work to avoid as much habitat as possible, but unfortunately some of these areas overlap,” he said.

Meanwhile, the conservancy is trying to salvage the cactus and preparing for restoration of the sites, collecting native seeds and growing new plants.

But the true extent of the damage and the effects to wildlife are unclear, Mihranian said, because city officials haven’t been able to go in to do a full assessment — the area is too unsafe.

 ”It's going to be a herculean effort and a very costly one as well,” Mihranian said of repairing the damage.

A colossal financial drain 

When the current fiscal year ends in June, Rancho Palos Verdes will have spent close $65 million on efforts related to the landslide since October 2022. For context, the city’s annual operating budget is around $40 million.

“ The city has taken a huge hit on this emergency response,” Mihranian said.

Rancho Palos Verdes has appealed to state and federal officials for assistance, but with little to no success.

Adding salt to the wounds, the city has also lost out on revenue from parking fees for the preserve. Revenue generated at the Abalone Cove Park lot has dropped from $150,000 each year, to just $11,000, according to the city. Revenue from parking near Del Cerro Park also decreased from around $32,000 in fiscal year 2022-23 to just $4,000.

Not to mention all the homes that have been lost, uprooting the lives of residents who haven’t been able to resell, instead relying on a government-backed buy back program.

Alternative trail routes

Lavoie, the Sierra Club member, said despite the trail closures, the vast open space in the Palos Verdes Peninsula means there are plenty of alternatives.

Here are some of his favorites:

• Lavoie affectionately calls the trail behind Highridge Park “the maze.” It’s an easy one-hour walk and you get to share the trail with horses. 
• Malaga Cove: Pass Neptune fountain, the library and post office to continue along a grassy hill shaded by eucalyptus trees. Use the utility pathway to reach La Venta Inn.
• The Via Buena stairs in Lunada Bay. 
• There are lots of great trails that start at Ernie Howlett Park.   

Anyone can join the Palos Verdes South Bay group of the Sierra Club on their hikes in the peninsula. Check their calendar for meeting spots and times.

Soccer fans who want to celebrate the World Cup at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum will be able to purchase tickets to the FIFA Fan Festival on April 22.

The four-day celebration begins the same day as the tournament, June 11, and goes through June 14. It’ll include live music, match broadcasts and other entertainment, according to FIFA.

Los Angeles is hosting eight tournament matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood this summer, including the match between the U.S. and Paraguay on June 12.

What you need to know

General admission tickets are $10, and reserved club and loge seats are $30. Children younger than 12 years old are free.

Tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster, according to L.A. Memorial Coliseum officials.

If event days are not sold out, fans can also purchase tickets at the Coliseum’s box office at Gate 29.

The venue does enforce strict bag rules. Any bags must be clear, and exceptions can be made for special circumstances, like medical or infant care items.

What games will be broadcast? 

Fans can catch some World Cup matches on big screens. Here’s the schedule:

June 11
Mexico vs. South Africa, noon

June 12 
Canada vs Bosnia and Herzegovina, noon
U.S.A. vs Paraguay, 6 p.m.

June 13 
Brazil vs Morocco, 3 p.m.
Haiti vs Scotland, 6 p.m.

June 14 
Germany vs Curacao, 10 a.m. Netherlands vs Japan, 1 p.m.

How do I get to the Coliseum? 

There’s more than one way to get to the venue. For public transit, the Metro E Line makes two stops near the Coliseum — Expo Park/USC and Expo/Vermont.

There will also be a designated area for rideshare drop-offs and pickups at Vermont Avenue between Exposition Boulevard and Downey Way.

Additional parking will also be available just a short walk from the venue on the USC campus. You can pre-book parking spaces starting at $55, here.

LAist has a fan guide for the 2026 World Cup.

The new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA opened to members this week, and I was thrilled to get a sneak peek at the space. The Brutalist spaceship-like arm that reaches across Wilshire Boulevard is organized loosely (even the accompanying guidebook is titled “Wander”), bringing decorative arts, design and photography onto the same plane as traditional painting and sculpture.

I particularly liked the American West rooms and the design-focused areas that somehow make even a full-sized car look small. Outside is just as impressive, with a Rodin sculpture garden and old friends like Alexander Calder’s "Three Quintains (Hello Girls)" — first commissioned for the museum in 1965 — getting a new home and water feature. There are lots of new spots to explore during the next Jazz at LACMA, for sure.

Did you get to the members' preview? Share your first impressions with bestthingstodo@laist.com

Licorice Pizza has your music picks, including Monday’s lineup of Biffy Clyro at the Belasco, Maya Hawke at Sid The Cat Auditorium, Langhorne Slim at the Troubadour, Young the Giant at the Grammy Museum and David Lee Roth runnin’ with the devil at House of Blues Anaheim. On Tuesday, Throwing Muses plays the Teragram, Failure plays Zebulon, Cheap Trick transforms Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium into Budokan and the UK’s Flyte plays their first of two nights at the LodgeRoom.

Wednesday, Daptone Records soul trio Thee Sacred Souls is at the Greek Theatre (they’ll play there Thursday as well). Also Thursday, She Wants Revenge is at the Wiltern, Ari Lennox is at YouTube Theater, fabulous showman Bright Light Bright Light plays the Mint and Britain’s Art Brut performs their entire album Bang Bang Rock & Roll at the LodgeRoom.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can practice saying "jacaranda" in between sneezes, help name the Big Bear eaglets and maybe consider rescuing a duck.

Events

The Librarians screening

Wednesday, April 22, 6:30 p.m. 
Emerson College Los Angeles
5960 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy PBS SoCal

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Join PBS SoCal for this special Indie Lens pop-up screening of the upcoming documentary, The Librarians. The film follows a Texas battle over restrictions on race and LGBTQ+ materials and tells the story of the librarians on the front lines. As lawmakers around the country push boundaries of censorship, the film looks at “the broader implications on these restrictions for education and public life.”

Mill at Little City Farm: No-waste dinners

Wednesday and Thursday, April 22 and 23 
Little City Farm 
1148 S. Victoria Ave., Koreatown
COST: $125; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Mona Creative

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Big-name local chefs like Quarter Sheets’ Aaron Lindell and Wildair’s Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske Valtierra try their hand at no-waste cooking at Little City Farm for Earth Week in collaboration with home composting company, Mill. On Wednesday, (Earth Day): Mike Fadem of James Beard semifinalist pizza restaurant Ops will collaborate with Lindell to create no-waste pizza recipes. Then, on Thursday, Stone and Valtierra team up with 2026 James Beard Emerging Chef finalist Fátima Juárez of Komal to showcase Mexican heritage-inspired dishes. All proceeds benefit LA Compost.

OC Made 

Through Saturday, August 1
Fullerton Museum Center
301. N Pomona Ave., Fullerton
COST: $10; MORE INFO 

Head to the Fullerton Museum Center for a new biennial juried exhibition, OC Made. It’s the first show of its kind dedicated to artists living and working in Orange County. This year’s crop features 108 artists and more than 130 pieces spanning painting, photography, sculpture and mixed media. Among the winners are Ramón Vargas for his piece "Wolf," plus curators’ choice nominees Jacquelin Nagel for "Begonia Maculata" and Brooke Hunter for "Center Stage." And keep an eye out for other events at the museum, like the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk on May 1.

Genesis Talks: Michael Govan and Peter Zumthor 

Wednesday, April 22, 7 p.m.
LACMA 
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile 
COST: $10; MORE INFO 

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Brigitte Lacombe

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Finn Partners

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This event is currently sold out, but keep an eye out for a last-minute chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the design and building of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries with LACMA CEO Michael Govan and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

Reefer Madness: The Musical

Through Sunday, May 10
Wisteria Theater
7061 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood
COST: FROM $58; MORE INFO 

You thought I’d forget that today is 4/20? Celebrate with a viewing of the musical Reefer Madness, based on the 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film, on through May 10 at the Wisteria Theater in North Hollywood. Those crazy kids.

Lemonade 10-Year Anniversary Party 

Thursday, April 23
El Cid 
4212 Sunset Blvd., Silverlake
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' turns 10 years old.

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Frederick M. Brown

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Getty Images

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Has it really been 10 years since Beyoncé released Lemonade? El Cid says so, so it must be true. Dance off your fears about getting old at this anniversary album party.

Earth Day with FernGully

Wednesday, April 22, 7 p.m.
Dynasty Typewriter
2511 Wilshire Blvd., MacArthur Park
COST: $20; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Dynasty Typewriter

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Spend Earth Day revisiting the environmentally conscious 1992 kids’ classic FernGully (soon to also be a live-action film directed by Marielle Heller — the nostalgia is real). Comedians like Cameron Esposito, Eric Bauza, Christa B. Allen and many more star in this live reading at Dynasty Typewriter. A donation will be made to the World Wildlife Fund.

Living Legends of Drag

Wednesday, April 22, 7:30 p.m. 
Barnsdall Gallery Theatre
4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Feliz
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Lil Miss Hot Mess

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Eventbrite

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Join drag kings and queens, including El Daña (the Guinness World Records' certified oldest performing drag king), Mo B. Dick (Drag King History), "Mother" Karina Samala (Imperial Court of Los Angeles and Hollywood), Jazzmun (Peanuts) and Manny Oakley (LA Drag Archive) for a panel — and, of course, a performance — about drag history and culture. Hosted by Lil Miss Hot Mess, the event is free and part of the National Humanities Center’s Being Human Festival, which runs through May 3.

A woman was arrested for allegedly trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government at LAX on Saturday night, according to authorities.

Shamim Mafi of Woodland Hills is charged with helping the regime sell drones, bombs and millions of rounds of ammunition to Sudan.

Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, made the arrest announcement Sunday morning on social media.

The 44-year-old Mafi is expected to appear in court for a bond hearing Monday afternoon in downtown L.A.

According to the criminal complaint filed by the Department of Justice and obtained by LAist, Mafi allegedly brokered weapons deals on behalf of Iran through Atlas International, a business in Oman she co-owns, including facilitating a contract valued at more than €60 million (or some US $70 million) for the sale of Iranian-made armed drones to Sudan.

She is also being accused of brokering the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses, AK-47 machine guns and other weapons to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense.

Mafi faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

Essayli said Mafi is an Iranian national who became a permanent resident of the U.S. in 2016.