(RNS) — An Iranian American evangelical pastor is calling for the U.S. government to release any Iranian immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, saying that if those immigrants are deported to their home country, they’d likely be killed. Especially if they are Christians.
“This regime is killing people,” Ara Torosian told RNS in a phone interview, referring to a crackdown against protesters in Iran, where hundreds and perhaps thousands have been killed, according to The New York Times.
“We are seeing what’s happening in Iran. There’s a massacre.”
Torosian, who said he came to the U.S. in 2010 as a refugee through the Lautenberg program for religious minorities and is now a U.S. citizen, is particularly worried about several members of his congregation in Los Angeles who have been arrested by ICE in recent months.
Last year, Torosian, who pastors a Farsi-speaking congregation at Cornerstone Church of West Los Angeles, a multiethnic nondenominational church, held a hunger strike for several days to protest the arrest of Iranian Christians living in the U.S. At the time, he told RNS that five members of his congregation who had come to the U.S. as asylum-seekers, and about 200 other Iranian Christians nationwide, were in ICE custody.
About 150 Iranians were deported to Iran in late 2025, RNS has previously reported. In December, an Episcopal priest in Virginia told RNS that two Iranian members of her congregation were arrested by ICE and faced deportation.
“We all feel a wound in our body of Christ, knowing what’s happening to them,” the Rev. Fran Gardner-Smith of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia, told RNS at the time.
Torosian said that at least one of his church members was granted asylum, but her husband was not. He fears the family will end up being split apart permanently if the husband is deported.
“This is just heartbreaking, and it shows me there is a broken system,” he said.
Torosian said many of his fellow evangelicals raise money and pray to support the plight of Christians who are persecuted in other countries. But they have been silent, he said, about what has happened to his church members, who had faced religious persecution as Christians in Iran. And he said the families of those who were arrested need help, but few evangelicals have lent a hand.
“Our people need help; they were not there,” he said. “That’s one of the things that really hurt my heart.”
Torosian said he and other church members took part in a protest against the Iranian government Sunday (Jan. 11) in Los Angeles, but were interrupted when a U-Haul drove into the crowd. The driver, who said he was not trying to hurt anyone, has been charged with reckless driving, according to news reports.
“I preached, we prayed, and now we have to act,” Torosian said, in explaining why church members took part in the protest.
Torosian said he’s been in touch with relatives in Iran, or those who recently left, and has heard horror stories of attacks on protesters. He’s posted video and audio recordings about the attacks on his Facebook page.
Along with calling for the release of detainees, Torosian said he hopes President Donald Trump and other world leaders will intervene in Iran.
“The people of Iran want you to keep your promise and stand with them. They are not asking for war, they are asking for freedom, dignity, and a future without fear,” he said in a recent post addressed to Trump.
