US cancels deportation flight of Iranians bound for Iran, attorney says

July lawsuit alleges US shared asylum seekers’ information with Iran

A U.S. deportation flight of Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly canceled Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke with some of the detainees slated for repatriation.

At least eight Iranians were loaded onto a plane Sunday morning in Mesa, Arizona, for a flight headed to the country of Georgia, then on to Pakistan, said Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees. The flight was canceled without explanation, he said.

Court documents unsealed in recent days in a civil lawsuit filed by the fund showed the Trump administration said as recently as mid-October that it had plans to deport the Iranians to Iran — where war has dragged on since February — via an unnamed third country. The lawsuit, filed in July, alleges the U.S. government illegally shared confidential information about Iranians seeking asylum in the U.S. with Iranian officials.

The administration did not specify in the October court records when the deportations would be carried out. But in the past week, roughly a dozen Iranian nationals in immigration detention said they were notified that they were scheduled for an upcoming deportation flight to Pakistan and then to Iran, according to numerous attorneys who have since confirmed those plans with the Department of Homeland Security. The confirmation of new plans amid the war came as the administration has ramped up removals, including to places that critics say could endanger the lives of the returnees. Three deportation flights to Iran between September 2025 and January 2026 carried more than 100 Iranian nationals.

In response to questions Sunday, the press office of the Department of Homeland Security provided a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on “prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger manifests, destinations, or individual case details,” and that the agency would not confirm future removal operations. “As promised, the Trump Administration is employing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history,” the statement said.

According to Rahnama, the eight detainees who boarded Sunday’s flight were visited by a senior official with the Iranian Interests Section — an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs — and were told that the Iranian government would transport them from Pakistan to Iran.

In the litigation brought by the Iranian immigrant advocacy group, at least a dozen Iranian detainees have said they’ve been contacted by Iranian officials who had knowledge of sensitive information on their asylum claims.

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, has not ruled on the claims but ordered the U.S. 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.

In a court filing Sunday, the defense fund laid out what it had learned about plans for a removal flight Sunday and argued that the administration may have violated the judge’s directive to give advance notice of deportation plans. Later Sunday, the government filed court documents in the case, but they were sealed and inaccessible to the public.

The fund has called for a halt to the removal flights, saying in a news release that they would “reportedly mark the first deportation of Iranians to Iran since the U.S.-Iran war began.”

The group’s executive director, Yasmin Chubin, said in a statement Sunday that it was difficult to comprehend why the U.S. would forcibly deport Iranians, including asylum seekers, to Iran amid ongoing military hostilities. The consequences of removal, Chubin said, “could be irreversible and individuals may face persecution, torture, or death.”

At least one person who had been part of the scuttled flight volunteered to go back to Iran after nearly two years of detention, Rahnama said, out of desperation to leave what he described as inhumane imprisonment. It is not clear how many other of the deportees may have volunteered to leave.