Iranian Deportations: Filings Show Talks With Tehran

Newly unsealed filings show the administration kept working with Tehran on Iranian deportations during the war, and a federal judge now requires advance notice before any Iranian is removed.

Iranian deportations did not stop when the United States went to war with Iran: court documents unsealed Thursday show the administration kept in contact with Iranian officials about submitting travel documents and finding “possible avenues for removal,” according to the Associated Press. The same filings show the government said as recently as mid-October that it planned to send Iranians out through an unnamed third country, and U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes has ordered officials to give the court 24 hours’ notice of any finalized plan to deport Iranians to Iran or anywhere else, and five days’ written notice before any such removal is carried out.

The order matters most to Iranians in ICE custody with final removal orders and the lawyers trying to reopen their cases. Five days is short, but it is the difference between filing an emergency motion and learning about a flight after it lands. When the judge put it to the government that it planned to send people back to the region, Justice Department attorney Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel answered, “Yes, your honor,” adding, “The government is executing lawful orders of removal,” according to an Oct. 15 transcript quoted by AP.

Judge Reyes said at that hearing that returning people to the region would mean, “at a minimum, a serious threat of certain death.” DHS did not immediately comment on the unsealed filings, AP reported.

Why Iranian deportations turn on asylum confidentiality

The legal fight is less about whether the United States may deport Iranians with final orders, which it may, than about what it tells Tehran along the way. Federal regulations at 8 C.F.R. 208.6 bar disclosure of information in an asylum, withholding or torture-convention application without the applicant’s written consent, and 8 C.F.R. 236.1(e) forbids officers who notify a detainee’s consulate from revealing that the person applied for asylum. Arranging travel documents with a foreign government is routine. Telling it that a national sought protection from it is not.

AP did not name the case. Its description matches a complaint filed July 7 in the federal district court in Washington where Judge Reyes sits, Iranian American Legal Defense Fund v. Rubio, No. 26-cv-2375, brought with Public Citizen Litigation Group against the State Department, DHS and ICE. That complaint alleges that starting in March 2025 the government shared immigration files, including asylum applications, with Iranian officials, gave them a list of about 150 names and let them meet detainees in ICE custody. It asks the court to set the policy aside under the Administrative Procedure Act, appoint a special master to identify whose files reached Tehran, notify those affected so they can seek to reopen their cases, and halt Iranian deportations until that review is done. Those are allegations, not findings. ICE told the Washington Examiner when the suit was filed that it used only “established protocols.” DHS has called the claim that ICE shared asylum records with Iran “FALSE,” saying it “works with every country to get travel documents for detainees,” AP reported in August.

What the earlier flights and third-country plans suggest

Removals to Iran have historically been rare, AP noted. Emails obtained by the National Iranian American Council and reported by AP in August showed more than 100 Iranians were returned on three flights, in September 2025, December 2025 and January 2026, with Qatari officials helping arrange charters through Doha, and that ICE accepted some last-minute changes to manifests at Iran’s request. The new filings show that channel stayed open after the war began.

The mid-October third-country reference fits a broader pattern. AP noted that an Iranian woman was among about two dozen migrants deported to the Central African Republic in June, and similar removals have drawn court fights, from the Afghan flight routed through Pakistan to an order to return a man sent to the Central African Republic. Congress has its own options to change third-country removal rules.

For an Iranian detainee, a third-country route does not erase the confidentiality question if identities were already shared, and a proven breach could itself be new evidence of risk supporting a motion to reopen. The notice order buys time to raise those arguments without deciding them. The open question is whether Judge Reyes grants the broader relief the plaintiffs seek. A New York judge took a similar stopgap approach this week when the court paused Afghan deportations.

What to watch

Government notices: any 24-hour filing announcing a finalized removal plan, which would start the five-day clock.
The third country: whether the filings or a later notice identify where Iranians would be sent.
Broader relief: a ruling on the plaintiffs’ requests for a special master and a pause on all Iranian deportations.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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