Families and advocates for U.S. citizens detained in Iran warn the intensifying conflict has put those prisoners in acute danger — from nearby airstrikes, possible retaliation by Iranian authorities, and deteriorating medical care.
“This is about as terrifying a moment as it gets,” said Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American who spent nearly eight years in Evin Prison before his 2023 release. Namazi said families are living through “days of war with no clear end in sight.”
The U.S. government has not publicly confirmed a total, but the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a hostage advocacy group, says six Americans are being held and face “unprecedented danger.” Known detainees include a former Washington-based reporter and a Jewish Iranian American from New York who traveled to Iran for family reasons and has been prevented from returning to the U.S.
At least two of the Americans are held at Tehran’s Evin Prison, the high-security facility that houses many of Iran’s political prisoners and has been targeted in past strikes. Representatives for the detainees say recent bombardments have come close enough to blow out windows of the detention center, and Israel has warned nearby residents to evacuate amid continuing air operations.
Kamran Hekmati, a 61-year-old Long Island resident detained at Evin, spoke briefly with his wife early in the conflict to say he was safe for the moment, according to his cousin, Shohreh Nowfar. But the family fears his condition could worsen rapidly: Hekmati has bladder cancer and has not received regular treatment since his detention, Nowfar said.
Reza Valizadeh’s lawyer, Ryan Fayhee, says he has repeatedly stressed the immediacy of the threat in discussions with White House and State Department officials. Fayhee says it is vital that military action take into account the presence of innocent American prisoners to avoid catastrophic collateral damage.
White House and State Department officials declined to provide details about the detainees’ locations or conditions, citing safety concerns, but both urged Iran to release the Americans. “President Trump has been clear that he wants every American wrongfully detained to be returned home safe and sound, and that there will be dire consequences for regimes who treat Americans as political pawns,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.
Valizadeh, who lawyers say is held at Evin, is among at least 15 journalists jailed in Iran, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. He fled Iran in 2009 after covering pro-democracy protests, gained U.S. citizenship in 2022 while working in Washington for Radio Farda (the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe, which receives U.S. funding), and was detained in 2024 after visiting elderly parents. Iranian courts sentenced him to 10 years on charges alleging collaboration with the U.S. government. The U.S. has classified Valizadeh as wrongfully detained, placing his case under the State Department’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
Another public case is Afarin Mohajer, a California resident originally from Iran, who was detained in September and accused of posting anti-regime content and insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader and Islam, according to her son, Reza Zarrabi. Zarrabi, who lives in Germany, has told European outlets he believes his mother was arrested to punish him for outspoken opposition to the Iranian government.
Hekmati’s family says he is the latest target of long-standing Iranian “hostage diplomacy,” in which Tehran detains foreign nationals to seek concessions or the release of Iranians held abroad. They say Iranian authorities stopped Hekmati at the airport in May, seized his passport, and charged him under a law that bars travel to Iran for those who visited Israel within the past decade. The family disputes espionage allegations that claim he met with Mossad, noting his last trip to Israel was about 13 years ago for his son’s Bar Mitzvah.
Advocates also fear Hekmati’s Jewish faith makes him more vulnerable to mistreatment. Kieran Ramsey, chief investigative officer at the nonprofit Global Reach, which works on Hekmati’s case, said those concerns surfaced early in the detention.
Namazi recalled a chaotic 2022 fire at Evin that killed at least eight inmates and left prisoners and families with little reliable information. “I remember the smoke, the confusion, and the total absence of reliable information,” he said. “For us prisoners it was terrifying. My mother says that night was one of the hardest she endured.”
With hostilities escalating, families say they face a harrowing mix of fear for their loved ones’ safety in the event of strikes, worry over disruptions to medical care, and anxiety that Iranian authorities may use the unrest to further punish or leverage detainees. Advocacy groups and lawyers continue to press U.S. officials to secure safe returns and to make clear the risks to detained Americans in any military planning.
