Feds face suit over outing asylum seekers to Iran

WASHINGTON (CN) — An Iranian American advocacy group argues in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that the Trump administration has endangered Iranian asylum seekers by sharing information about their applications with the Iranian regime, including whether they participated in pro-democracy protests.

The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund filed the suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security’s apparent policy as a clear violation of the asylum seekers’ confidentiality rights.

“In furtherance of its mass deportation agenda, in March of 2025, the Trump administration adopted a policy of providing the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iranian government) with confidential information from the immigration files of Iranians seeking asylum in the United States,” the legal fund says. “Many of the asylum seekers are pro-democracy protesters, members of religious minorities such as Evangelical Christians, or members of the LGBTQ+ community who seek refuge in the United States because of the grave dangers they face in Iran.”

A DHS spokesperson rejected the legal fund’s assertions in an emailed statement, insisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not shared asylum application records with the Iranian government.

“ICE meets and works to get travel documents for detainees with every country,” the spokesperson said. “ICE is committed to ensuring that illegal aliens are informed of their right to communicate with their consular representatives. Consistent with established protocols, ICE provides illegal aliens the opportunity to contact their consular post and facilitates consular access to dented individuals, in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and agency policy.”

According to the legal fund, the policy has continued despite the Trump administration’s military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters in January 2026 and the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran launched on Feb. 28.

By disclosing asylum seekers’ reasons for fleeing the country, the legal fund argues the Trump administration puts relatives and acquaintances still living in the country at risk, and immigrants subject to removal to Iran at risk of persecution, torture and potentially death following their arrival in Iran.

Specifically, the advocates say Trump’s policy violates the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture, under which a migrant may still be ultimately deported from the United States so long as they are removed to a country where they would not face persecution.

The legal fund is asking U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from proving any further information to Iran and appoint a special master to review the shared files to identify those who have had their confidential information compromised.

Further, it requests an order that the government notify the fund and the detainees whose information was shared and enjoin the deportation of any detainees until the special master has completed their review.

Ali Rahnama, interim executive director of the legal fund, slammed the Trump administration in a statement for betraying asylum seekers “hoping for freedom.”

“Congress made these confidentiality protections mandatory precisely because lives depend on them, and no agency and no administration, of either party, may set them aside,” Rahnama said. “[The legal fund] is asking the court to stop these disclosures immediately, order a full accounting of ever record shared and ensure no asylum seeker’s file ever again reaches the hands of their persecutors.”

According to the legal fund, the Trump administration in March 2025 contacted the Iranian Interest Section at the Embassy of Pakistan — Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 hostage crisis and thus have no consulate in Washington — to discuss deporting Iranians.

The fund says State Department officials provided a list of about 150 individuals it wished to deport before ICE and Iranian government officials agreed to meet each month to share the immigration files and information of detained Iranians.

Those in-person meetings purportedly continued until Feb. 28, when the U.S. unleashed widespread strikes on Tehran, beginning an outright war and killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni.

However, the fund claims ICE continued mailing and delivering packages of documents on the detainees to the Iranian Interest Section. Further, ICE supposedly allowed Iranian government officials to meet with individuals held in ICE custody without their consent, where the officials had knowledge of confidential information from the detainees’ immigration cases.

Under the deal, according to the fund, the U.S. has sent at least three mass deportation flights to Iran between Sept. 30, 2025, and Jan. 25 containing approximately 115 to 125 individuals in total.

The legal fund says the flights have included individuals who engaged in the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Christians and members of the LGBTQ+ community, and the U.S. government made no requests for protections or assurances for the deportees.

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