An Iranian pastor in California has called for the United States to “open the doors” to refugees after several of his church members – all asylum-seekers – were detained.

Ara Torosian, an Iranian-American who himself arrived to the US as a refugee in 2010 after being arrested for bringing Bibles into Iran, has made headlines in recent days after posting footage online showing the arrest of one couple from his church.

The shocking video shows a woman, whose first name is Marjan, having a panic attack as her husband, Reza, is led away by agents of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit.

Pastor Torosian, speaking with World Relief yesterday, said he was very “emotional” as he filmed the arrest, and that it “triggered” memories for him of his own mistreatment at the hands of the Iranian authorities.

And the pastor, who leads the Cornerstone Church of West Los Angeles, said he wanted to see the US “open the doors for people to be able to come legally”.

Pastor Torosian explained that for “many months” his church had explored the Welcome Corps programme to see if there was a way in which Iranian Christian refugees may be able to arrive legally in the US, but that “suddenly they said, ‘Sorry, we don’t accept any Iranians to come.’” 

The pastor said that having arrived himself through the Lautenberg Program, he was sad the programme was now suspended and called on US lawmakers to “show me any legal way for Iranian refugees to enter this country”.

“There is no other way,” Pastor Torosian said, than arriving at the border and waiting to be processed, as his detained church members did. “I’m asking them to open one way, a merciful way – for them to apply the law, but with mercy.”

The pastor added that he could understand why illegal immigrants who had committed crimes might be detained, but said that this was not the case for his church members and that he could not understand why they had been taken away ahead of their scheduled asylum hearings in September.

The pastor added that lawyers who had previously agreed to represent his church members had stepped back from the case as a result of the publicity it had received.