At least two American citizens, including an Iranian Jewish businessman, have been officially designated by the United States as being wrongfully detained in Iran, a classification that triggers additional legal and diplomatic mechanisms aimed at securing their release.

The issue gained renewed attention after President Donald Trump was asked during an NBC interview aired Sunday whether any future agreement with Iran would include provisions for the release of detained Americans.

“Not everybody really has an accurate list of who they are, what they are, or whether they are being held,” Trump said.

Despite Trump’s comments, the cases of two Americans whom the State Department has formally identified as wrongfully detained have received significant attention in recent months.

One of them is 71-year-old Kamran Hekmati, an Iranian Jewish dual citizen who traveled to Israel 14 years ago to celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah. Hekmati, who holds both American and Iranian citizenship, returned to Iran about a year ago for a brief family visit and was subsequently arrested and sentenced to two years in prison.

A jeweler and business owner in Manhattan’s Diamond District, Hekmati was detained in July 2025 and has remained incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin Prison ever since. Iranian authorities arrested him at the airport, alleging that he violated a law prohibiting Iranian citizens from visiting Israel. Although he emigrated to the United States at age 13, he entered Iran using an Iranian passport, as required under Iranian law, which does not recognize dual citizenship.

The second detainee is Reza Valizadeh, a 50-year-old journalist who also holds dual Iranian-American citizenship. After leaving Iran in 2009, Valizadeh returned in March 2024 to visit his elderly parents. According to reports, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had assured him that he would not encounter problems if he returned. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in September 2024.

Since his detention, Valizadeh has reportedly been interrogated and held in solitary confinement. He was later sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of “collaboration with a hostile government,” a broadly defined accusation frequently used by Iranian authorities against dual nationals and critics of the regime. His family and supporters contend that he was denied due process. In May 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State officially designated him as wrongfully detained.

Both men have now spent more than a year behind bars, and concerns regarding their health and welfare continue to mount. Family members told CNN that Hekmati is suffering from bladder cancer.

Attorneys representing the families said they were informed earlier this year that American negotiators are aware of the detainees’ cases. Another source involved in the matter reportedly said the names of the prisoners had already been provided to members of the U.S. negotiating team.

Valizadeh recently succeeded in sending an audio recording from Evin Prison to CBS News. In the recording, he referred to three additional American citizens being held at the notorious Tehran facility and claimed that all of them suffer from “various illnesses” while being denied adequate medical treatment.

When asked about detained Americans during Sunday’s NBC interview, Trump expressed a willingness to become involved in efforts to bring them home.

“If you give me their names, I’ll do my best to bring them home,” Trump said.

{Matzav.com}