US President Donald Trump’s administration held secret talks with Iran on deporting Iranians, court documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
The court documents unsealed Thursday show the Republican administration as recently as mid-October said it had plans to deport the Iranians through an unnamed third country, although they did not specify when that would be carried out.
The judge in the case ordered the government to give the court 24-hour notice of any finalized plans to deport Iranians to Iran or to any other country and five days’ written notice before any such deportation is carried out.
A legal group representing Iranians held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement said at least a dozen Iranian detainees had been notified over the past week that they were being deported to Iran, with some told it could be as soon as this coming Sunday.
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said Thursday the Iranian detainees were contacted by the Iranian Interest Section, an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs, in the past week and notified of an upcoming deportation flight to Iran through Pakistan. Some had also been notified by DHS officials of the upcoming deportation.
One of those detainees attempted suicide once he learned he might be returned to Iran, according to Yasmine Chubin, the executive director of the organization. He was one of two people who were subsequently moved across state lines to a detention center where detainees are often sent immediately before a removal.
None of the detainees who have been contacted have been provided any information in writing from immigration authorities, the legal group said.
“Some of those same asylum applicants, and others who could face the same death, are being sent back — all against a backdrop of further and intensifying US bombing of Iran,” Chubin said. “This flight must be stopped.”
Activists abroad have expressed concern about deportees returning to Iran, whose theocracy has been cracking down on intellectuals and where the government vociferously cracks down on any dissent.
The lawsuit on the Iranian asylum seekers alleges the Trump administration’s immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings state.
The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the US and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in ICE custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments.
DHS has denied that it is sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government. The judge overseeing the case said it was possible the government shared the confidential information, but appeared skeptical of claims that have arisen in the lawsuit that DHS has a coordinated policy of sharing those records.
In addition, hundreds of emails exchanged between US immigration officials exposed how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.
