The Trump Administration’s Unprecedented Deportations of Iranians to Iran
This week, the U.S. government chartered a deportation flight to Iran with 55 Iranian nationals.
Until the June war, Iranian nationals in the U.S. had not been a major target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deportations. While some individuals in the community were targeted in prior years and in the months before the war, like former University of Alabama student Alireza Doroudi, escalating enforcement is increasing the risks and heightening fears in the community.
As revealed by Iranian officials and reported on in American publications, the U.S. government chartered a deportation flight to Iran with 55 Iranian nationals. In total, roughly 400 Iranian nationals are expected to be deported to Iran in future flights, though thousands of Iranians ultimately are at risk of eventual deportation.
Escalation after the June War
The deportation flight follows a wave of harsh ICE arrests of Iranian nationals following the June war, which saw more than 130 arrests of Iranian nationals in the week that followed, with ICE portraying the nationals as major security threats. Contrary to their portrayal, the vast majority of the cases appear to involve fairly typical people who happened to encounter complications in their immigration status, often caused by a minor offense or misstep years ago.
The very notion of a deportation flight to Iran is new. In the absence of formal diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States, the Iranian government has not cooperated on deportations to its territory. This fact was cited by the Trump administration to justify its targeting of Iranian nationals in its most recent travel bans, as well as prior ban iterations from the first Trump administration. As President Trump’s Executive Order stated in June, Iran “has historically failed to accept back its removable nationals.”
The scale of the deportations also appears to be a significant jump. ICE removal data indicates that only 79 nationals from Iran were deported across more than four years, between October 2021 and January 2025. 55 deportations in a single flight is a total that more than doubles total deportations of Iranian nationals in any recent calendar year.
The Human Impact of Detention and Removal
Ultimately, the start of deportation flights to Iran underscores the extremely difficult position Iranian nationals face once caught in America’s deportation machine. Iranian nationals have reported unsanitary and overcrowded conditions inside ICE detention facilities, adding to the suffering of those ripped apart from their families and wondering when, if ever, they’ll be allowed to return to their loved ones and the life they were leading. Earlier this year, Alireza Doroudi, a student who had been attending the University of Alabama prior to his arrest by ICE, chose to self-deport despite having a promising path to release when faced with miserable conditions in detention and experiencing the rejection of a country that appeared not to want him.
While some individuals have been offered deportation to a third country, like Romania, this is a daunting prospect as the deportees wouldn’t be able to speak the language and would be cut off from any support network. Given these difficult alternatives, deportation back to Iran could be a source of relief for some: freedom from continued harsh imprisonment, knowledge of the country and language and family and friends to fall back on. But for others, it risks delivering Iranian nationals back into the hands of the authoritarian government they fled from in the first place. For some individuals, that could mean a death sentence.
It is clear that at least some of those on board did not want to be deported and could face risks upon their return to Iran. As Farnaz Fassihi of The New York Times reported, “Among them were a 30-year-old woman who is a Christian convert; a 36-year-old man — the father of a newborn — who is an ethnic minority and political dissident in Iran; and a young man who had come to the United States with dreams of economic prosperity.”
Narrowing Pathways for Iranians in the U.S.
The prospect of Iranian nationals coming to and staying in the United States to pursue the American dream has never been more difficult. Visas are now banned across the board for Iranians. For those here, ICE arrests and the prospect of deportation, are an increasing risk. It’s more important than ever for the rights of Iranians to be respected: by the U.S. government which must allow Iranians at risk to seek and secure asylum, and by the Iranian government must uphold its international rights obligations and halt all abuses of its citizenry.