State Department Extends Visa to at Least One Iranian Guard Corps Member

The State Department defended its decision to issue visas to at least one member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York this month.

While members of Congress and human-rights advocates have pointed to Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi’s involvement in the mass killings of political prisoners as a reason for the U.S. to deny him a visa, the Biden administration allowed a delegation led by him to visit New York this week to attend the U.N. meetings. Underappreciated is the fact that the State Department seems to also have issued a visa to a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Ali Sadriniya, who joined Raisi’s delegation, according to pictures taken of the group.

Normally, Sadriniya would have been prohibited from receiving a U.S. visa. Since the IRGC is an officially designated foreign terrorist organization, its members are banned from entering the U.S. Asked for a comment, the State Department said that it doesn’t discuss visa records because they are confidential under U.S. law. A spokesperson told National Review that “national security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications,” and that applicants undergo “extensive security screening.”

The State Department also defended its visa practices under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement, a decades-old arrangement that prohibits the hosts of U.N. facilities from barring foreign governments’ access to them. “As host nation of the U.N., the United States is generally obligated under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement to facilitate travel to the U.N. headquarters district by representatives of U.N. member states,” the spokesperson said. “We take our obligations under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement seriously.”

While the U.S. is bound by that agreement, there are still questions about the proper way to enforce it, and State has more jurisdiction than the Biden administration is acknowledging, said Gabriel Noronha, a former government official who worked on Iran policy at the State Department. “When the State Department lets Iranian terrorists into New York City, they take their supposed obligations to the U.N. more seriously than their actual constitutional obligations to protect the security of U.S. citizens,” Noronha told NR.

He added that Sadriniya is likely not the only IRGC member to have been granted a visa for this week’s U.N. event: “The Iranian delegation likely includes around 100 IRGC members — from security to intelligence operatives.”