BATON ROUGE — After their clients were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, attorneys and advocates for two Iranian LSU students say that the last few weeks of proceedings have been concerning.

Pouria Pourhosseinhendabad and Parisa Firouzabadi were released from ICE detention earlier this week following their arrest in June. Additionally, all removal proceedings against the Iranian couple have been dismissed. 

"From the beginning, this was a clown show in my opinion, orchestrated by the Trump administration," Kenneth Mayeaux, the attorney for the couple in immigration court, said.

On June 22, Pouria and Parisa were arrested at their apartment on Brightside Drive. According to the ACLU of Louisiana, which represented the couple along with RFK Human Rights in Federal Court, "ICE used state police to effectuate a ruse in which agents pretended they were responding to a hit-and-run the couple reported previously."

"There's a significant problem with how the two of them were arrested, because there were no exigent circumstances that required any type of Ruse," ACLU of Louisiana Legal Director Nora Ahmed said. "What ICE can do is they can knock on the door and they can say 'We're ICE' and then an individual can say, 'Do you have an arrest warrant?' They can show an administrative warrant if they have one. Individuals inside their home can say, 'I don't have to open my door for an administrative warrant,' because they don't have to, but they will if ICE comes back with a judicial warrant. So it appears that there was some type of desire not to get that judicial warrant to enter the home, but they could have done that because there were no exigent circumstances that required them to enter the home," She added. 

According to court filings, the couple arrived in the United States in 2023 with student visas. Parisa wasn't formally renewed in September 2023, but under the law, she was allowed to remain in the country. 

"In the immigration world, the Visa that you get in your passport allows you to enter in to the United States, and when they enter on those Visas, they're placed in to what's called duration of status, and as long as they don't leave the United States and as long as they comply with the terms of their Visa, which is go to class, continue academic progress, they're in a lawful status until they leave," Mayeaux said. 

The two were placed in detention centers. In both federal court and immigration court, they pressed for evidence. 

"As a result of their pressures and our pressures on the immigration side to have the evidence produced to support these charges, the government folded and went home. It's extremely unusual that the immigration prosecution office would have completely dismissed the charges," Mayeaux said. 

Mayeaux called authorities' reasoning for arresting his clients "completely pretextual."

"In this case, all they had was an immigration and administrative arrest warrant, which to this day, they have never produced. In court or otherwise, even though the regulations require that upon the time of the arrest," Mayeaux said. 

Ahmed added that the timeline for the entire situation was deeply concerning to her. U.S. bombings in Iran happened on June 21; the couple was detained the next day. 

"They're then transported to Hancock, Mississippi, and then they're sitting there, respectively, at Jena for Pouria and Basile for Parisa, not fully understanding why they are there in the first place. It takes until June 27 for Parisa to even have any documentation uploaded to the immigration court database, talking about why she's even there. It takes until July 9 for that same piece of information to arrive for the first time for Pouria," Ahmed said.

The issue, she added, was that the charging document was dated June 23 even though the documents were uploaded on dates long after this day. 

"Which means the clients themselves had no real understanding of why they were in jail until many days after they had already been there," Ahmed said. 

The charges on the document dated June 23 were also concerning to Ahmed. 

"There are charges of espionage and sabotage contained therein, which is pretty shocking, and it suggests that Parisa's F-1 visa was revoked in September of 2023 as a result of charges related to being a spy and saboteur. Now that's highly questionable because it would suggest that the United States was on notice that a potential spy from Iran was on the ground and also allegedly committing sabotage, and just let it ride," Ahmed said. 

Ahmed told WBRZ that the charges were retracted on July 7. However, she says Parisa's attorneys were not notified about this until two days later.

"There's still a Visa revocation charge on her updated document, but we no longer see any suggestion of espionage or sabotage. That's also deeply concerning because it would suggest that there was bombing, arrest, an attempt at justification, and then a review as to whether those charges could stand, and then a retraction of that, but it takes days for any of that to occur," Ahmed said.  

WBRZ called the office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana and the ICE New Orleans Field Office for comment. Neither groups' spokespeople have responded. 

Mayeaux says they're waiting for the formal decision of the immigration judge, dismissing the proceedings. He expects that to happen within the next couple of days.