WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's administration held secret talks with Iran on deporting Iranians even as the war there dragged on, court documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
The court documents unsealed Thursday show the Republican administration as recently as mid-October said it had plans to deport the Iranians through an unnamed third country, although it was unclear when it intended to do so. The judge in the case ordered the 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.
“We are at war with a country where the President of the United States has said, as recently as two or three days ago, if not yesterday, that it is essentially lawless ... A country that is an enemy of the United States, according to the current president. A country that, according to our president, murdered tens of thousands of protestors,” Judge Ana Reyes said according to the Oct. 15 transcript.
“And what you’re telling me is that the United States of America is going to send individuals back to that region, facing what you and I and everyone who would ever look at this would know would be, at a minimum, a serious threat of certain death.”
“Yes, your honor,” Justice Department attorney Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel said. “The government is executing lawful orders of removal.”
Georgiev-Remmel told the court there was no specific date set to carry out any removals. A legal group representing Iranians held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement said a dozen Iranian detainees had been given notice over the past week that they would be deported to Iran. The legal group, the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, brought the lawsuit in which the transcript was released.
The court documents show that the administration maintained contacts with Iranian officials during the war over the removals, specifically for submitting travel documents and figuring out "possible avenues for removal."
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The AP reached out the State Department for comment.
Lawsuit has been challenging deportations of Iranian asylum seekers
The development emerged from an ongoing lawsuit that alleges the Trump administration's immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings argue.
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said Thursday at least 12 Iranian detainees have been contacted by the Iranian Interest Section, an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs, in the past week and notified of an upcoming deportation flight to Iran through Pakistan. The group did not say when the deportation would occur.
One of those detainees attempted suicide once he learned he might be returned to Iran, according to Yasmine Chubin, the executive director of the organization. He was one of two people who were subsequently moved across state lines to a detention center in Texas, where detainees are often relocated immediately preceding a removal.
None of the detainees who have been contacted have been provided any information in writing from immigration authorities, the legal group said.
Activists abroad have expressed concern about deportees returning to Iran, whose theocracy has been cracking down on intellectuals and where the government vociferously cracks down on any dissent.
The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the U.S. and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in ICE custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments. DHS has denied that it is sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government.
Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials exposed how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.
Deportations of Iranians have been historically rare
During the Oct. 15 hearing, Reyes warned government attorneys that she would initiate contempt proceedings if the administration violated her order to give the court advance notice of any planned deportation flights.
“We are talking about sending individuals in our care and custody to a country that we have bombed and we may continue bombing, and is a declared enemy of this country,” Reyes said.
In a court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department said the judge’s order effectively served as an injunction against the government “given the possibility of sanctions and contempt dangling overhead.”
Deportations of Iranians back to their home country are historically rare, owing to the lack of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran and the possible persecution they could face if they were sent to Iran.
But under the Trump administration, which is carrying out a broad immigration crackdown, ICE has aggressively pushed to deport people even from countries that have typically been reluctant to take people back or with whom the U.S. has had icy or no diplomatic relations.
Sometimes that has meant sending people back to their home country, but it has also meant deporting people to other countries they have no connection with.
The Trump administration has deported people, including Iranians, to countries other than their own in an attempt to circumvent diplomatic hurdles with governments that won’t take their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have accepted noncitizens from the U.S.
In June, an Iranian woman was among two dozen migrants the U.S. deported to the Central African Republic.
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Riddle reported from Los Angeles. Follow the AP's coverage of the Iran war at https://apnews.com/hub/iran.