The federal government is standing by its allegations against Yousof Azizi, while refusing to make public the evidence behind them.

GERMANTOWN, Md. — Two days after the wife of a detained Germantown father spoke exclusively to WUSA9, the Department of Homeland Security is firing back — calling her account of conditions inside his detention facility "categorically false" and reaffirming it will not publicly release the evidence behind its allegations against him.

Yousof Azizi, an Iranian PhD candidate at Virginia Tech's Arlington campus, has been held in an Arizona immigration detention facility since his arrest on April 13. His wife, Aliyeh Hashemi, told WUSA9 that her husband reported sleeping on a concrete floor without a mat, pillow, or blanket, surrounded by sick detainees — two of whom she says coughed up blood.

DHS rejected that account in full.

"Claims of poor conditions at ICE facilities are categorically FALSE," a DHS spokesperson wrote in a statement to WUSA9. "This is a ridiculous lie that the media is peddling to demonize ICE law enforcement."

DHS is also standing firm on its core allegation — that Azizi lied on his student visa application by denying past membership in Iran's Student Basij Organization, a pro-government group affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. designates a foreign terrorist organization. Hashemi has flatly denied that her husband was ever a member of the group.

When pressed for evidence to support the...

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