I write this tragic story describing my bitter fate to be recorded in history. It may well be the last thing I ever write. ICE has detained me for 1,450 days, each second of it a torment of fear, haunted by Judge Salavati’s death sentence and the smirks of the Iranian regime's agents.
My name is Erfan Fard (also known as Qaneei Fard). I am a political analyst and researcher who has consistently defended Israel and the Jewish people against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the network of Islamic terrorism that threatens regional and global stability.
Since March 28, 2025, I have been detained by ICE in Dallas, Texas, without charge or crime. My life and fate now lie in the hands of ICE Headquarters and secretory Kristi Noem. According to my attorney, Michael Payma, this detention, now over 200 days, violates ICE and Department of Homeland Security regulations.
I entered the United States in 2003 and have never committed a single violation during my 23 years here. The U.S. government, immigration court, ICE, and prosecutors have never accused me of wrongdoing beyond the technical issues related to my immigration file.
In 2012, I published The Memoirs of The Honorable Parviz Sabeti, the former senior SAVAK official under the Shah of Iran. That book exposed Islamic and Marxist terrorist networks involved in the 1979 revolution. Later, during a visit to Iran, I was arrested by the regime’s MOIS and Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court on fabricated charges of “acting against national security,” “disturbing public opinion,” and “insulting Khamenei.
I was imprisoned in Evin Prison’s Ward 350, notorious for political prisoners. After fifty days, following intervention by President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, I was released and immediately returned to the U.S. to seek asylum.
Between 2013 and 2015, I conducted field research for a counterterrorism center in the Middle East and “US” forces, focusing on Iran’s Quds Force network. My research was shared with U.S. authorities. From 2015 to 2017, I continued my graduate studies in Security Studies at the University of London.
In March 2017, upon receiving notice from the Los Angeles Immigration Court, I traveled from London to Mexico on my valid UK student visa and presented myself at the U.S. border. I explained that I was still awaiting a U.S. visa but wanted to avoid delays, asking if there was any way to facilitate entry. Instead, ICE detained me.
Three months later, Judge William L. Abbotte issued a deportation order to Iran without a hearing or consideration of evidence. My attorney, James Irani, appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). In January 2018, the BIA reopened the case, citing my cooperation with the CIA and supporting documentation from the U.S. Embassy. However, in October 2018, Judge Michael S. Pleters again issued a deportation order to Iran.
I initially chose to leave the U.S. voluntarily, but DHS refused to allow my departure to London, insisting I be sent to Tehran! In January 2019, four DHS officers escorted me to Baku, Azerbaijan, to board a flight to Iran.
I refused and requested to travel to London instead. The confrontation escalated until Baku Airport security intervened, and both I and the officers were detained in an airport lounge for four days. Eventually, one officer took my passport to the U.S. Embassy in Baku, and I was flown back to New York via Morocco. My passport was stamped for reentry, yet ICE refused to return it.
Although I did not wish to reenter the U.S., ICE persuaded my attorneys to convince me, promising release on bond. I returned to New Jersey, but ICE detained me until my passport expired on June 20, 2020.
After three years and three months, I was released under an Order of Supervision, with work authorization, a Social Security number, and official release documents. I lived in Washington, D.C., later moving to California to teach at a college.
Throughout my supervision, I fully complied with all ICE requirements, never violating a single rule, despite repeated harassment. I continued working with major international media outlets, Al-Sharq, Al-Hadath, Al-Hurra, The Times (UK), The Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, and others, writing on Iranian affairs, security, and counterterrorism.
With written authorization from ICE in Los Angeles and notice to my second attorney, Jonathan Sturman, I traveled to Dallas for a teaching position.
On March 28, 2025, when I voluntarily appeared to update my address, DHS detained me again. I have now spent 200 additional days in detention, a total of four years in ICE custody.
My attorneys and even some ICE officials acknowledge that I have committed no crime whatsoever.
In early October 2025, Iran regime-affiliated propaganda outlets illegally published news of my detention, celebrating my potential deportation. Their aim is to see me returned to Iran, where I would face serious harm.
Iran International TV, Israel-Farsi TV, and The Epoch Times have since interviewed me and my attorney, exposing this plot. I also published an article in the Middle East Forum, identifying the regime-linked networks behind these efforts.
Several organizations and individuals have supported me: Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and Princess Yasmine, NUFDI, the Constitutional Party of Iran (Liberal Democrats), the Cyrus the Great Institute, Israel National News, and my publisher in Los Angeles have all written letters to U.S. officials. A Change.org petition has surpassed 3,000 signatures, addressed to President Trump and Senator Ted Cruz. The Jewish community in California has even suggested that Israel should grant me refuge.
My attorneys, Jonathan Sturman and Michael Payma, continue to fight for my release. The BIA has been asked to reopen my case, and a stay of removal has been requested. ICE could have released me after 90 or 180 days, yet I remain detained, and deportation to Iran remains a constant threat.
If deported, I would face imprisonment, torture, or execution. My only “offense” has been to speak openly against the Islamic Republic, defend human rights, and support Israel.
I am not undocumented, not illegal, and not a criminal. My plea is simple: that the United States, a nation that stands for freedom and justice, not deliver me into the hands of those who would silence me forever.
At the end of this story, for the historical record, I want to say this:
The first judge, in 2017, did not allow me to speak even a single word or submit even a single sheet of paper. The second judge, in 2018, had no knowledge of the case, he had not read a single line of my articles, books, or interviews. Everything had been arranged behind closed doors with ICE, and he hastily signed the deportation order, indifferent to its consequences, indifferent to a human fate. Frankly, the prosecutor representing DHS appeared throughout the hearing with a smirk on his face. I remained silent, stunned by his aggression, rudeness, and hostility, and I wept inside.
Let it be said: the only “evidence” against me was a report from Kayhan, the newspaper of the Islamic Republic, and two separatist terrorists.
To this day, ICE’s entire logic rests on that same judge’s decision, a decision that has clung to my life like cancer. And now ICE asks why, in January 2019, I did not board the plane from Baku to Tehran. They refuse to understand the threat to my life and the reality of a death sentence. It simply does not matter to them.
When they brought me back to the U.S., they deliberately kept me in detention until my Iranian passport expired (June 20, 2020). And now, after five years, they have once again requested a new passport from the Iranian consulate in Washington to send me to Iran through Qatar.
Truly, there is no logic, no justification, no moral, human, or legal sense in this entire case.
And once more, for history, I say this:
I have spent 450 days of these 1,450 days in solitary confinement, in real prisons in Alabama and Oklahoma. In Alabama, for 185 days, I was denied even sunlight. (These two prisons are leased by ICE and are sometimes used to break a person before deportation.)
Now, after another 200 days of renewed detention and uncertainty, I have lost everything I ever built in America. Yet I still hope, from the depths of my heart, to be freed from this situation. And I cry out in anger that the country of liberty refuses to understand my travails.
For what sin, what crime, what fault must I suffer this? I have seen no justice in this case, no fairness, no American values, no humanity, no rule of law.
The sun will rise again over Israel and America, but this bitter story will endure as a testament of history.
Erfan Fard
Dallas, Texas (ICE Detention)
October 2025