FIRST ON FOX: The Islamic Republic of Iran could be holding more than eight American citizens and residents, Digital has learned from sources outside the Trump Administration who are familiar with Tehran’s hostage-taking policy framework.
Information indicates that the total number of American citizens and residents held hostage by the Iranian regime might surpass the five listed in open-source data.
Iran’s regime took U.S. citizen Kamran Hekmati— a 70-year-old from Great Neck, New York who traveled to Iran to visit family last May— into custody. Iranian authorities arrested Hekmati in July 2025 and charged him with “traveling to Israel” 13 years prior to his Iran trip. Hekmati, a Persian Jew born in Iran, went to Israel in 2012 to attend his son’s Bar Mitzvah.
Iran bans Iranians from traveling to the Jewish state or having any relations with Israel. Tehran considers Hekmati an Iranian citizen because the regime does not recognize dual citizenship.
The regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced Hekmati to four years in prison, and he is being held in — a complex reportedly used to torture political prisoners and dissidents. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) noted Hekmati has also been detained at an intelligence ministry facility in Tehran. CNN reported that Hekmati has bladder cancer.
The regime arrested another U.S. citizen, Afarin Mohajer, on Sept. 29, 2025 at Imam Khomeini International Airport. Human rights group HRANA said there was no information about the charges brought against her.
According to U.S. government outlet Radio Farda— which covers Iran— Mohajer has an inoperable brain tumor and was told by “a doctor before going to prison that she does not have long to live,” citing her son. She visited Iran to handle her husband’s finances after his death, the son said. Though released on bail in December, she is not allowed to leave Iran.
Authorities arrested an unnamed Iranian-American woman in December 2024. She was released from prison, but officials seized the dual national’s passport, and she is also barred from leaving Iran.
Former Radio Farda journalist Reza Valizadeh traveled to Iran in March 2024 to visit relatives, per a report by (UANI) on American hostages held in Iran.
U.S. government outlet Voice of America— like Radio Farda, it covers Iran— said Valizadeh was reportedly arrested in September 2024 and charged with “collaborating with overseas-based Persian media.”
The charge was later changed to “collaborating with a hostile government.” UANI noted that “VOA cited sources claiming Valizadeh was arrested for not cooperating with the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization and Iran’s intelligence ministry, and for not expressing regret for his journalism.”
The regime arrested Shahab Dalili, a permanent U.S. resident who , in 2016.
The UANI report stated that Taghato— a Farsi-language news outlet run by Iranians living in the U.S.— posted on Twitter (now X) that the Iranian regime arrested Dalili in March 2016. He went to Iran after his father’s death. The Iranian regime’s opaque judicial system sentenced him to 10 years in prison for “allegedly cooperating with a hostile government.”
A U.S. State Department official told Digital, “As Secretary Rubio has said, President Trump is working to secure the release of detained Americans around the world. The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly and wrongfully detaining other countries’ citizens as hostages for political leverage. Iran should release these individuals immediately.”
The U.S. official added, “Due to security considerations related to ongoing cases, we do not disclose specific numbers of hostages.”
Barry Rosen— a former American diplomat and survivor of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when Islamist revolutionary students held 66 Americans captive— told Digital amid nationwide anti-regime revolts, “We are in a very intractable situation right now” and expressed skepticism about bringing the hostages back under current conditions.
The to topple the regime regarding securing the hostages’ release “make it even more complicated,” Rosen said, adding that hostage diplomacy “has always been complicated.” Rosen was eventually released after spending 444 days in captivity.
“Quiet diplomacy is the best way forward, but I don’t think quiet diplomacy is possible right now,” he said.
When discussing “quiet diplomacy,” Rosen said he was “talking about dealing with the hostage situation with Iran, given all our differences on the . But when it comes to the uprising in Iran, we need to loudly support a democratic Iran.”
Rosen— who considers Iran his second home— said, “I want to see the Iranian people do what they’re doing now, so the Iranian regime implodes on its own.” He added, “Supporting uprisings (and protests) is the right path. I fear any military operations that could cause chaos in the country.”
Rosen co-founded the non-governmental organization , which provides current information on hostages held outside the U.S.
Navid Mohebbi— who worked as a Persian media analyst for the U.S. State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau— wrote a booklet titled “Breaking the Trend: How to Combat the Hostage-Taking Business in Iran” for the U.S.-based National Union for Democracy in Iran.
He told Digital, “Iran’s hostage-taking is not a series of isolated cases; it’s a systematic state policy designed to extract political and economic concessions. The Islamic Republic has learned that detaining Americans and other Western nationals carries little cost and often yields tangible rewards— whether , access to frozen assets or asymmetric prisoner swaps. As long as this behavior is treated as a humanitarian problem rather than a coercive strategy, Tehran will continue to rely on hostage-taking as a core tool of statecraft.”
He continued, “To reverse this pattern, the United States must impose consequences that are measurable, cumulative and irreversible. Every hostage-taking case should trigger automatic penalties: targeted sanctions on judges, prosecutors, interrogators, prison officials and intelligence officers involved; permanent confiscation— not escrow— of regime assets tied to hostage diplomacy; and coordinated diplomatic consequences with allies, including travel bans, removal of regime officials from international bodies and pursuit of Interpol red notices where applicable. The message must be unambiguous: hostage-taking will leave the regime worse off, not better.”
Mohebbi urged, “The U.S. should formally designate Iran as a state that engages in hostage-taking, ban U.S. passport use for travel to or through Iran and maintain a public registry of regime officials involved in these crimes. At the same time, Washington must provide stronger, more transparent support to hostage families and ensure sustained public naming and shaming. Only by raising the cost across legal, diplomatic, financial and reputational fronts can the United States begin to dismantle Iran’s hostage-taking business,” he said.