Saagar Enjeti

So the two women are Hamada Soleimani Afshar, she's 47, and her daughter, Serena Hosseini, who is 25.

And they are, or they were, legal permanent residents with green cards living in Los Angeles like a lot of the rest of our Iranian American population.

Now, the idea that it's okay to punish two women for being related to a man who previously did battle with the United States when he was alive is itself absurd.

None of us are responsible for what our uncles do.

God help us all if we are.

But because Rubio made such a big deal about these arrests and this claim, it's worth asking whether it's even true.

So we reviewed Iranian birth records, identification papers, and other personal documents, including wills and other records.

And we can reveal that, no, these women have no connection to Qasem Soleimani whatsoever.

It is entirely a case of mistaken identity sparked by right-wing activist Laura Loomer and also some fans of the Shah.

So birth certificates from Iran collected by the family

lay out a documented family tree spanning multiple generations with no connection to Soleimani or even to relatives of the late general.

So at Dropsite News, my colleague Murtaza Hussain and I also reviewed other personal identifying documents, including passports, family photographs, and work documentation from both Iran and the U.S.

that strongly contradict the allegations that the two women were connected to the late Iranian commander."

or that they were living lavishly from any connection to the Iranian government.

I spoke to both women yesterday from their South Texas ICE detention facility, which is privately run by the GEO Group, and they remain shocked at the situation they find themselves in.

Hamada, she told me, had actually previously been imprisoned by the Iranian government for protesting it.

When she got to the United States, the thing she told me that she was most looking forward to was being able to freely speak her mind.

Serena told me that, yes, her mother is highly opinionated, but what they are not is related to Qasem Soleimani.

Now, in order for Soleimani to be Hamada's uncle, based on her last name, he would need to be the brother of Hamada's father.

Hamada's father, Ali Soleimani Afshar, was born in Tehran in 1947.