Congress is investigating the Biden administration over its decision to grant a U.S. visa to an Iranian national tied to Iran’s terrorist fighting force and its former leader, Qassem Soleimani.
House Armed Service Committee member Rep. Jim Banks is asking the Biden administration to explain why it granted a visa to Iranian actor Parviz Parastui. Banks says Parastui has an “overt connection” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the U.S.-designated terror organization responsible for killing Americans.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Parastui was permitted to attend a film screening event in Los Angeles late last month that was organized by the far-left anti-Israel group Code Pink. While attending the event, Parastui was caught on camera assaulting an Iranian dissident who challenged him on the regime’s human rights abuses. Parastui’s ties to the hardline regime and support for Soleimani—which includes signing a 2020 letter by Iranian leaders condemning the Trump administration’s assassination of the terrorist leader, who they referred to as a “martyr”—should disqualify him from entering the United States, according to Banks and former top U.S. officials who spoke to the Free Beacon about the situation.
“Parastui has been directly involved in IRGC-funded propaganda projects, promoting a hardliner ideology that seeks to shape Iran’s culture to the agenda of the Iranian regime,” Banks wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “He played roles in numerous pro-regime and pro-IRGC films. Parastui also never shies away from expressing his affinity with the IRGC in public.”
Parastui’s visit comes amid active threats by Iran to assassinate U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
Banks maintains that the State Department’s decision to grant Parastui a visa undermines U.S. efforts to isolate the hardline Iranian government, the IRGC terror group, and the country’s jihadist proxy organizations, which continue to conduct attacks on American outposts in the region. It also could help Iran trigger terrorist cells based in America, according to Banks.
“Your departments have allowed notorious, high-profile affiliates of the IRGC into our country even before the [IRGC] is delisted,” Banks wrote. “I can only imagine how members of the IRGC could rush to the United States legally to exploit our market and financial system and carry out terrorist activities against the United States, if the IRGC is indeed delisted.”
In his letter to the DHS and the State Department Banks demanded the agencies disclose their vetting process for the visa approval process, including the names of the individuals who oversaw this case.
Banks also asked the State Department to provide detailed information on its efforts to counter Iranian disinformation and propaganda.
Gabriel Noronha, a State Department special adviser for Iran during the Trump administration also noted concerns over the decision to grant the visa.
“It’s deeply concerning that the State Department is granting visas to Soleimani sympathizers while the regime has repeatedly proclaimed it is trying to kill U.S. officials in revenge for Qassem Soleimani,” Noronha said.
