Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) took to X on May 15, 2026, to announce the introduction of new legislation targeting a gap in U.S. immigration law that has allowed close family members of designated terrorists to legally reside inside the United States. “Relatives of terrorists have no business being in our country,” Cotton wrote. “My bill would revoke visas from family members of terrorists to keep Arkansans safer.” The legislation, formally titled the No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act, was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee upon introduction.
The bill arrives in the wake of a high-profile case that drew national attention in early April, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny at their home in Tujunga, California. Afshar is the niece of deceased Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force before being killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad’s airport in January 2020. Afshar had gained asylum in the United States in 2019 and became a green card holder in 2021, while her daughter arrived in 2021 on a student visa and secured her own green card in 2023.
According to a State Department statement, while living in the United States, Afshar promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised Iran’s new Supreme Leader, denounced America as the “Great Satan,” and voiced support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their lawful permanent resident status on April 4, 2026, after which both women were taken into ICE custody and placed into removal proceedings.
Cotton’s legislation is a direct legislative response to what his office characterized as a systemic loophole — not a one-time administrative failure. The No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to create a permanent new ground of inadmissibility covering the spouses, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews of individuals designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, senior leaders of foreign terrorist organizations, senior officials of state sponsors of terrorism, or sanctioned kleptocrats and human rights abusers. The bill explicitly names Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, and Cuba as covered foreign adversary nations.
Critically, the legislation would apply retroactively. Under its text, covered inadmissibility would attach regardless of when the family relationship was formed or when the underlying terrorist designation was made, meaning individuals already legally present in the United States on visas or other immigration documents would fall under its scope immediately upon enactment. The bill further mandates that the Secretary of State revoke any existing visa held by a covered family member within 30 days of a determination of inadmissibility — removing the administrative discretion that Cotton’s office argued had allowed cases like the Soleimani relatives to persist for years unaddressed.
The legislation also eliminates discretionary relief. Aliens who are rendered inadmissible under the new provision would be ineligible for cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, or any other form of immigration relief, except as expressly carved out within the act itself. The Secretary of Homeland Security would be required to prioritize the removal of all covered individuals. Separately, within 180 days of enactment, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security would be required to implement enhanced screening procedures using all available intelligence, law enforcement, and sanctions databases to identify covered family relationships.
The act also establishes an annual reporting requirement, obligating the Department of Homeland Security to submit to relevant congressional committees a yearly accounting of the number of individuals determined inadmissible under the new provision, the number of visas revoked, the number of removals carried out, and a summary of any waivers granted along with justifications for each. The transparency mechanism is designed to prevent the provision from becoming a dormant statute, requiring the executive branch to demonstrate active enforcement on a recurring basis.
Cotton’s bill targets a category of individuals distinct from those who have themselves committed or materially supported terrorism — existing law already addresses those cases under separate inadmissibility grounds. The legislation’s findings section argues that current terrorism-related inadmissibility provisions are too narrow and too discretionary to systematically screen family members, noting that close relatives of active threats often share access to networks, resources, and influence that can harm the United States. The Soleimani case illustrated exactly that concern: Afshar entered the country on a tourist visa in 2015, was granted asylum four years later, obtained a green card in 2021, and was publicly broadcasting pro-regime, anti-American content on social media throughout that period — none of which triggered automatic visa revocation under existing law.
The bill arrives at a moment of heightened scrutiny of Iranian-connected immigration cases more broadly. The Trump administration has revoked the green cards or U.S. visas of at least four Iranian nationals connected to the current or former Iranian government, including two detained by immigration authorities facing deportation. Secretary Rubio also revoked the visas of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, an academic and daughter of Iran’s former national security adviser Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi, neither of whom remained in the United States at the time. Those actions were taken under existing executive authority — Cotton’s legislation would codify and systematize that kind of enforcement as a matter of statute rather than secretarial discretion.
The bill’s scope extends beyond the Iranian context that immediately motivated it. By covering designated terrorists across all nationalities, senior officials of any state sponsor of terrorism, and senior officials of any country formally designated as a foreign adversary — a category that includes China, Russia, and North Korea — the legislation would reach family members of potentially thousands of individuals already on U.S. government designation lists. The breadth of that coverage is likely to generate debate during committee consideration, particularly over due process questions for family members who themselves have no terrorism ties and may have lived in the United States for years or decades.
Cotton has long been among the Senate’s most aggressive voices on immigration enforcement tied to national security, and the No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act is consistent with his broader legislative record on the issue. Whether the bill advances out of committee or gains co-sponsors in the current session remains to be seen, but its introduction signals that Cotton intends to push the Soleimani case — and the broader loophole it exposed — into legislative debate as the administration continues its campaign of immigration enforcement against individuals with ties to adversary governments. The bill’s text was referred to the relevant committee upon its May 15 introduction.