While the United States, Israel, and Iran exchanged attacks and threats during 12 days of conflict in June 2025, Washington and Tehran simultaneously maintained a cooperation channel for a more discreet operation: deporting Iranian citizens from U.S. territory. Internal emails from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Service, recently made public, reveal that authorities from both countries coordinated at least three flights to expel more than 100 Iranians in late 2025 and early 2026.
The hundreds of messages, obtained by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, also show that Iranian officials may have had influence over who was included on the deportation lists. In some cases, ICE made changes requested by the Iranian embassy even a few days before the flights took off, according to excerpts from the content of those emails disclosed by NIAC on its website.
“At the request of the Iranian Embassy, I added some cases,” an ICE official wrote in late August, about a month before the first flight. More than a week later, another official noted that he had modified the list after meeting with the “director of the Iranian Embassy.” “Iran has asked me to modify the previous manifest and speed up the expulsion process,” he wrote.
Tehran’s requests continued until the last moments. In an email dated September 26, just three days before the first flight’s departure, an ICE official indicated that the Iranian Embassy was still requesting that three people be added. It is unclear who ended up traveling, as the flight was ultimately smaller than expected. Even on the day of departure, there were new Iranian requests, although one was rejected.
But the documents obtained by NIAC show that the operation faced obstacles from the start. Some Iranians opposed returning to their country, while in other cases there were court orders preventing expulsion to Iran. Additionally, many could not obtain Iranian passports because they did not want to return. Despite these difficulties, ICE continued seeking ways to carry out the deportations.
According to the emails, the order to prioritize the expulsions of Iranians came directly from the White House during the June 2025 war. Then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons and other senior officials began treating these cases as a priority, even when within the agency itself they warned that Iranian airspace was closed and that Iranian citizens were trying to leave the country.
The official in charge of expulsion operations, Marcos Charles, then requested to develop a plan to deport 58 Iranians who were in ICE custody and had final removal orders. “We need a plan to move forward as soon as possible,” he wrote. Another official asked colleagues to “find a solution for this White House priority.”
The official documentation obtained by NIAC also revealed who participated in the coordination. One of the most involved officials was an ICE attaché for enforcement and removal operations in the agency’s office within the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. The documents do not explain why that office had such a prominent role in a deportation operation to Iran when the flight was not even scheduled to stop in Israel.
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Additionally, ICE facilitated visits by the director of the Iranian Interests Section at the Embassy of Pakistan to meet with people detained in the United States. According to NIAC, that official also sought to include more people on the first flight, citing humanitarian reasons.
The first flight left the United States on September 29, 2025, and arrived in Qatar, where 54 Iranians were transferred to a Qatar Airways plane bound for Tehran. There, one of the most striking episodes revealed by the documents occurred: an Iranian citizen who was not on the manifest ended up on board and was finally sent to Iran.
“An Iranian who was not on the final passenger list we sent to the Qatar Ministry of Interior boarded the flight,” an official wrote. Another responded: “I have no idea how the case or the person managed to get on the plane.” According to NIAC, the problem was discovered when passengers disembarked in Qatar before continuing to Iran. The individual was eventually repatriated after communications between Qatari authorities and the Iranian Embassy in Doha.
The expulsions have raised concerns about the fate of those deported, including activists and minority members who might fear persecution in Iran. The United States had maintained a welcoming policy toward Iranian dissidents and exiles for decades after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Questions about the treatment of asylum seekers are compounded by a lawsuit filed last month accusing the U.S. government of sharing confidential information of detained Iranians with Tehran authorities. Eleven people stated they were forced to meet with Iranian officials while in ICE custody and that these officials knew details of their asylum applications.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has denied that accusation. “These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” the agency stated in July.
NIAC maintains that questions remain about who exactly ordered the operation, why the ICE office in Tel Aviv had such a significant role, and how a citizen who was not even on the manifest ended up deported to Iran.
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