Aliyeh Hashemi says her husband Yousof Azizi was never a member of any terrorist-linked organization and was in the country legally when ICE agents arrested him. GERMANTOWN, Md. — The wife of a Germantown father detained by federal immigration agents is speaking exclusively to WUSA9, denying the government's allegations against her husband and describing the devastating toll his arrest has taken on their two young children. Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian PhD candidate at Virginia Tech's Arlington campus, was taken into custody by Homeland Security Investigations agents on April 13 outside his Germantown, Maryland home. He is now being held at an immigration detention facility in Arizona after being transferred from Maryland to Louisiana and then to Arizona — a journey his wife says took nearly five days. His wife, Aliyeh Hashemi, who also holds a PhD, asked not to appear on camera to protect the privacy of their children. But she agreed to answer questions exclusively from WUSA9 in writing. Denying the charges The Department of Homeland Security alleges Azizi lied on his student visa application by denying past membership in Iran's Student Basij Organization, a pro-government paramilitary group affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. designates a foreign terrorist organization. DHS also says his student visa was terminated after he failed to re-enroll at Virginia Tech for the Fall 2025 semester. Hashemi flatly denied both allegations. "This is not true," she wrote. "He has never been a member of Basij or any similar group or organization, either in Iran or in the U.S." On the visa question, Hashemi says her husband had already completed all required dissertation credits at Virginia Tech but the university was still requiring him to register for 12 credits per semester at international tuition rates — costs the family could not afford. He applied to change his visa status from F-1 student to F-2 dependent, which would have allowed him to register for just one credit per semester while finishing and defending his dissertation. "His lawyer said he was completely in status," she wrote. "The real problem is that he spoke up about the war. This status story is just an excuse." A scholar, not an activist Hashemi says her husband's appearances on BBC Persian and other outlets grew organically out of his academic work — not from any political agenda. "After he started his dissertation on the decision-making of U.S. presidents regarding other countries' nuclear energy policy and Iran as a case study, attended academic conferences, and published articles, he gradually became well known," she wrote. "The media, especially Persian-language media outlets outside Iran, began interviewing him. The issue of Iran's nuclear program was a hot topic, and they competed with one another to interview Yousof, who was articulate, thoughtful, and presented new and scholarly ideas." She says his message was always one of bridge-building between two countries he loved. "Yousof believed Iran to be an ancient land of science and culture, and America to be the center of science and technology," Hashemi wrote. "He loved both countries and always believed that relations between Iran and the United States should improve. In his interviews, he made great efforts toward promoting negotiation instead of war." 'He thinks it is his father' The hardest part of Hashemi's account involves her children — a 3-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, both U.S.-born. She was home when agents arrested her husband in the parking lot. The children were at school and day care. "My 3-year-old son, who was deeply attached to his father, is distressed and feels a sense of loss, but he does not understand what is wrong," she wrote. "At night, before going to sleep, he cries intensely — he was used to going to bed with his father. Whenever someone comes to visit or the doorbell rings, my son thinks it is his father and runs toward the door." Her 11-year-old daughter, she says, bursts into tears whenever she sees her little brother run to the door. Hashemi told her daughter that her father is in custody because of a "visa misunderstanding" and that lawyers were working to bring him home. The couple have no family in the United States. Hashemi's parents are in Iran, and a pending immigration application has prevented them from traveling there to visit for more than a decade. Conditions in detention Hashemi says her husband was able to call her during his five-day transfer between facilities. What he described alarmed her. "They are being held in a small place with many other people, most of whom are sick and coughing or sneezing badly," she wrote. "He said that two of them had even coughed up blood, which splashed onto the wall in front of them. At night, without mats, pillows, or blankets, everyone has to sleep on the stone or concrete floor." She says the cold and illness left her husband unable to sleep for several nights, forcing him to walk around the small space until morning just to stay warm. 'Freedom of speech was real' Hashemi says the past week has forced her to reconsider everything she believed about the country she and her husband chose to build their lives in. "We believed that the United States welcomed international students, professors, and academics from around the world," she wrote. "We believed that freedom of speech was real. We believed that the U.S. was moving closer to its democratic ideals. But now, as an academic family, we see that none of this seems to be working anymore. This event has shattered the assumptions we held thirteen years ago when we came to the U.S. to continue our studies." DHS says Azizi will remain in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge and will receive full due process. WUSA9 reached out to DHS Tuesday afternoon seeking comment on Hashemi's claims and has not received a response.