Informative · Courts

America just ran secret deportation talks with Iran during the war

2 hours ago · 6 November 2026Share

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on a removal flight. — A United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer patrols a removal flight. File photo. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Washington, D.C. · Public domain

America and Iran are at war right now.

But court documents just showed something nobody expected. The two countries have been secretly talking. About deportations.

The papers were unsealed a day ago. They were obtained by the Associated Press.

So what do they show? The US and Iranian governments swapped messages about travel documents. And about what the filings call "possible avenues for removal" for Iranian asylum seekers sitting in US immigration custody.

And this kept going. All through the war. The same war that has seen American and Israeli strikes on Iran since earlier this year.

Here's the timeline. As of mid-October, about three weeks before this came out, the plan was still to send these Iranians through an unnamed third country. No date was set.

Now, normally this doesn't happen. The US and Iran don't even have formal diplomatic relations. Deportations to Iran have always been rare, partly because of that, and partly because of what could happen to people once they're sent back.

So where does this come from? A lawsuit. Filed by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund. It accuses US immigration agencies of illegally handing over confidential information on Iranian asylum seekers to Tehran.

US District Judge Ana Reyes is running the case. At a hearing three weeks ago, she ordered the government to give the court 24 hours' notice of any finalised deportation plan. And five days' written notice before anyone is actually deported.

At that same hearing, a Justice Department attorney, Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel, told her this. He says quote "the government is executing lawful orders of removal".

And this isn't just talk. More than 100 Iranians have already been flown back. Three flights. September 2025, December 2025, and January 2026.

It's not stopping either. The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund says at least a dozen more detainees were told in the past week that they're being sent to Iran. Some were told it could happen as soon as this coming weekend.

The rest of this story is for members.

Here's the part that explains how. The group says the detainees were contacted about the flight by Iran's Interests Section. That office runs out of Pakistan's embassy in Washington. And the deportation itself would route through Pakistan.

Now the human cost. Yasmine Chubin runs the group. She says one detainee tried to take his own life after finding out he could be sent back to Iran.

DHS has denied handing over asylum records to the Iranian government. And neither DHS nor the State Department has responded to AP's request for comment on the documents.

But here's the thing. This isn't the first time this has come up.

A few months ago, a different batch of emails came out. Released by the National Iranian American Council. They showed Iranian officials actually had influence over who ICE put on deportation flights. Including last-minute additions, made at Iran's request.

Jamal Abdi runs that council. He said at the time the real priority was to remove as many people as possible, by whatever means necessary.

DHS called that claim "FALSE" a few months before that, when it was responding to an earlier version of this lawsuit.

And this fits a pattern. The administration has pushed to deport people to and from countries with almost no diplomatic ties to the US before. An Iranian woman was sent to the Central African Republic about five months ago. El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have all taken people deported from the US under separate deals.

So what don't we know? What else this back channel with Iran has covered, beyond deportations. Whether it's still running right now. And whether it connects to anything in the wider war.

Neither the White House nor the State Department has said a word about the contacts themselves.

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America just ran secret deportation talks with Iran during the war

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