When Arthur Sahakyan of Diamond Bar received an anonymous call on his cellphone late Monday morning, June 30, telling him they were coming to arrest his wife, he thought it was a fake prank of harassment — something he said he often experiences in relation to a large Trump American flag the family displays outside their home.

“We get this every single day, day in and day out,” Sahakyan said, describing myriad threats they’ve received warning that something was going to happen to them as a result of their support for President Donald Trump.

On Monday, June 30, at 11:30 a.m., the two callers who would not identify themselves ended up being from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and they promptly took Arpineh Masihi into custody as her children watched.

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Masihi, 39, who came from Iran with her family at age 2, is now being held indefinitely at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Victorville — scared and confused, but still a staunch supporter of Trump and his immigration policies.

“Of course I am,” Masihi said by phone on Thursday, speaking from the facility during a call with her husband, who let a reporter speak to her. “I vote Trump all the way. I’ll never take it back. He did the right thing … He’s doing the right thing. I would never take it back. And a lot of people hate me in here for that.”

Most of the people she has encountered in what she described as the “humongous” facility where she’s being detained, don’t speak English and, Masihi observed, are “all from the border.”

Masihi herself is of Armenian descent, but she and her family fled Iran when she was two, in the late 1980s, ultimately finding their way to California.

Masihi said she committed what both she and her husband describe as a petty crime more than 17 years ago, before Sahakyan met her, involving what he indicated was a check-fraud incident of less than $200. As a result, Masihi lost her Green Card and has been unable to clear the incident from her record.

He said the couple has regularly met with legal counsel and Masihi has kept up regular contact with immigration authorities throughout the years. Most recently she met with them in April, where she was assured everything was fine and would ultimately be resolved.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, presented a different picture, describing Masihi as “a criminal illegal alien from Iran.”

“She was convicted of burglary and sentenced to two years in prison in 2008,” a senior DHS official stated on Saturday, July 5. “Following her criminal conviction, she was placed into immigration proceedings.”

“A judge issued her a final order of removal on June 24, 2009,” the official said via email. “She had more than 15 years to self-deport and leave the U.S.”

“Under President Trump and (DHS) Secretary (Kristi) Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,” they said. “Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”

A background check confirmed the burglary, plus some lesser offenses, some which have since been dismissed.

Sahakyan acknowledged “something” in 2008 but “we couldn’t find a charge like that,” adding that she came to the U.S. legally as a refugee.

“She made mistakes,” he said. “But we all make mistakes.”

The couple largely accepts the situation, although Masihi places some of the blame on previous Democratic administrations and not on Trump, whose immigration crackdown since early June has blanketed Southern California.

“To be honest with you, if I’d never made the mistake when I was young,” she said, this never would have happened. “It’s mine, but I blame the Democrats for allowing people in, because Trump would never have done this.”

Sahakyan concurred. “We kind of had a feeling inside ourselves that it might happen to us,” he said, noting that war between Iran and Israel — including U.S. bombings of Iranian nuclear complexes — put them on alert.

Masihi said the process could have been handled much better on the part of ICE.

“They could have let me go,” she said, after 48 hours, and perhaps ordered an ankle monitor following the posting of a bond.

Sahakyan described how flustered he was during the arrest, which began while the family was having lunch. The agents, who were not wearing masks, as has often been the case in public incidents, did not show any identification, they said.

“Give me your badge number,” Sahakyan said he told them. “Give me your credentials. Give me something so I can verify you.”

Sahakyan phoned the Sheriff’s Department and he said deputies quickly drove out to the house. They, in turn, assured an emotional Sahakyan that these were, in fact, ICE agents and that the Sheriff’s Department was powerless to stop them from arresting Masihi.

Ironically, Sahakyan described the two ICE agents as being “very nice” under the circumstances.

“Emotions were very high,” he said. “You have to understand that (but) I apologized to them … I told them, ‘I’m sorry, but what do you expect from a husband who this was happening to.’”

While Sahakyan has not changed his allegiance to Trump, he explained how this incident has brought him great sympathy for families that are going through similar events, especially those with no money to get help.

Fortunately, because the family is able to afford what Sahakyan said is about $50 a day in reverse-charge phone calls, Masihi is able to speak with her husband and kids every hour or two.

“The only thing she cares about are her kids,” Sahakyan said. “She just wants them to know how her kids are doing.”

While he described his wife as being very emotional and tearful during phone calls, Sahakyan himself grew tearful as he described the situation following the arrest.

“After that, she went to L.A. for two days,” Sahakyan said, though he never learned exactly where the downtown facility was.

Masihi described it as horrible.

“The other facility I was in was the worst facility in the world,” Masihi said. “We had no showers for three days … we had no blankets, anything.”

After having spent a great deal of money in trying to fix the situation over the years and get Masihi her citizenship status back, the couple has finally been able to retain a new attorney.

“I just found one today,” Sahakyan said on Thursday. “I’ve been doing about 50 calls a day to attorneys. It’s unfortunate that they’re all booked. Every attorney is booked because June, I guess, was a very big month for immigration.”

The next step will be for Masihi to hopefully receive a court date on the matter.

“I just have to see,” she said. “They are not giving me a bond.”

“It’s gonna mark my kids forever,” Masihi said, describing how she would miss the Fourth of July holiday.

“Emotionally, I’m broken,” Masihi said. “Mentally, I don’t even know who I am.”

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.