From: Christian Post. (Photo by Amir Shiri/Unsplash)
Evangelical Pastor Ara Torosian knows what it’s like to become a “target” of Iran’s Islamist regime.
Having been on house arrest for two years, Torosian, who now shepherds the Farsi-speaking congregation at Cornerstone Church in Los Angeles, California, fled his native country more than a decade ago and is grateful to have been resettled in the United States as a refugee.
“I experienced true religious freedom for the first time in my life in this country, of which I am now a proud, grateful citizen,” Torosian, who is now a U.S. citizen, wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times this week.
But in June, he was “shocked” when masked federal immigration officials detained five members of his congregation, including one couple seeking asylum. He said they were “separated from their families and threatened with deportation” back to a country that would “kill them for their Christian faith.”
A viral video that circulated online purports to show one woman having a panic attack as officers arrest her husband on the street, a few blocks away from the church. Torosian ran over to the scene after being contacted by the woman. The pastor films the interaction and shouts at the officers, asking, “Why are you doing this?”
“I rushed over and began to film the shocking scene: First he was detained by masked officers, and then she was. I asked if they had a judicial warrant, but if they did, they would not show me,” he recalled. “The woman experienced a panic attack and was taken to a hospital but discharged into ICE custody; she is now hours away in a detention center in California. Her husband is in a detention center in Texas.”