When Arthu Sahakyan’s wife was detained by ICE on June 30th, he might have been expected to tone down his avowed support of Donald Trump’s tough immigration policies.
But the California husband and father is sticking to his guns, as reported by Fox11 on Tuesday.
Sahakyan’s wife, Arpineh Masihi, entered the U.S. as a three-year-old refugee when her family fled Iran. Like many of the 400,000 Iranian-born immigrants living in the US, Masihi obtained a green card, settled in the Los Angeles area, and started a family.
Masihi’s green card was revoked 15 years ago due to a theft conviction, which her husband said was “less than $200.” According to her husband, she had been meeting with immigration authorities regularly since her green card was revoked in order to regain her legal status.
However, in the wake of the U.S. military’s strike on Iran last month, immigration authorities detained over 130 Iranian nationals amid fears of backlash from Iranian sleeper cells. Masihi was one of them: federal agents arrived at the family’s door on Monday.
Even after Masihi’s detainment, Sahakyan told Fox11 that he has no hesitation about keeping the family’s massive Trump flag flying on his house. During Trump’s campaign last year, he and his wife were such enthusiastic supporters of the president that they bought MAGA hats for their three sons. Fox’s segment on Tuesday showed one of those sons crying.
Still, when asked if the experience of watching his wife be taken away had changed his stance toward Trump’s immigration policies, Sahakyan largely demurred.
“Somewhat it has, just because I’m going through it. I was very selfish before,” Sahakyan said. “But what I see now is, ‘Ok, there’s a reason for it.’”
He continued to justify the necessity of ICE’s work, saying that detaining people like his wife “will resolve a lot of issues because we’ll know exactly who’s in here, for what reasons. Even though I miss her dearly.”
As for his feelings toward the president, he said that “Trump is not trying to do anything bad. We understand what he’s doing. He wants the best for the country.”
His wife is scheduled to be moved to a different facility soon, and her fate after that is uncertain, according to Fox.
