Four Iranian brothers who were detained for more than three years as national security risks were released late Wednesday when the government agreed to ease restrictions on their movements in the Los Angeles area, immigration officials said yesterday.
The Mirmehdi brothers -- Mohammed, 34, Mohsen, 37, Mojtaba, 41 and Mostafa, 45 -- left the Terminal Island jail near Long Beach, Calif., on Wednesday evening.
"It was bittersweet," their attorney Marc Van Der Hout said. "They lost 3 1/2 years of their lives because of post-9/11 hysteria."
The brothers were first arrested in 1999 in connection with lying on applications for asylum. At the time, federal agents linked them to the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, a terrorist network opposed to the ruling regime in Iran. They were released the following year, but were arrested again in October 2001 as national security threats.
During their detention, a panel of immigration appeal judges ruled that evidence linking them to the MEK was invalid, and that they could not be sent to Iran, where MEK members are allegedly tortured. But the government is still seeking to deport the Mirmehdis to a third country for the other violations.
The Mirmehdis could have left jail in February when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials offered to release them on the condition that they sign a pledge not to travel more than 35 miles from home or talk to anyone with a criminal or terrorist background. They refused, saying the restrictions infringed on their First Amendment rights.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the conditions were amended to keep them in a three-county area and bar them from political acts, espionage or terrorism as well as from knowingly associating with anyone involved in those acts.
