Overview

• Madonna “Donna” Kashanian, 64, who arrived on a student visa in 1978 and has no criminal record, was detained while gardening by plainclothes officers and taken to a Louisiana processing center.
• The arrest occurred hours after US airstrikes in Iran and formed part of an ICE nationwide sweep that also detained two Iranian LSU students in Baton Rouge.
• Recent statistics show an 807% surge in ICE arrests of individuals without criminal histories since President Trump’s second inauguration, with about 59,000 detainees currently held.
• Kashanian’s husband and daughter are urgently seeking legal representation with limited access to immigration attorneys in Louisiana.
• A separate incident of US citizen Andrea Velez’s detention in Los Angeles has intensified concerns about ICE practices and potential racial profiling.