Eight US Republican Senators have written to President Joe Biden asking him to deny a visa to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi who plans to travel to the UN in New York in September.

Earlier this week, an Iranian spokesman said that Raisi (Raeesi) is preparing to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time. Last year after he toook office he did not travel to New York and send a video address to the General Assembly.

Senators Tom Cotton, March Rubio, Joni Ernst and Ted Cruz are among the eight Senators who told Biden, “Raisi’s involvement in mass murder and the Iranian regime’s campaign to assassinate U.S. officials on American soil make allowing Raisi and his henchmen to enter our country an inexcusable threat to national security.”

Raisi is accused of being a member of a death commission that ordered the summary execution of thousands of political prisoner sin Iran in 1988.

Moreover, US law enforcement arrested a man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle in Brooklyn last week near the house of a well-known Iranian journalist and women’s rights defender Masih Alinejad, believed to be a target of the Iranian regime. Last year, the US uncovered a plot by Iranian intelligence to kidnap the activist.

The Senators in their letter cited precedence of US denying visas to Iranian and other leaders and diplomats for visiting the UN, urging President Biden to also deny entry to Raisi and his aides.