Published September 30, 2025
While the exact makeup of the deportees is unclear as of this publication, there has been an uptick in Iranian asylum seekers in recent years, many of them seeking protection from religious persecution.
According to Iranian officials interviewed by the Times, Monday’s flight was made up of men and women and included individuals whose asylum cases have yet to be heard by a U.S. judge.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported a group of Christian asylum seekers from Iran to Costa Rica and Panama without hearings. Christianity is severely persecuted in Iran, with the hardline theocratic regime there consistently ranking as one of the world’s most egregious persecutors.
The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations with Iran, and the two countries have been consistently hostile toward each other, rarely cooperating.
In the year leading up to September 30, 2024, the U.S. deported 27 Iranian nationals, according to official U.S. government reports aggregating data on the more than 270,000 deportations to 192 countries in fiscal year 2024. It is not clear from public government records whether these deportations were to Iran or to third countries, as the data is recorded by country of citizenship rather than destination.
However, previous press releases and media reports suggest that at least some of these cases may have included returns to Iran via commercial flight. The U.S. has previously returned persons charged with violating U.S. trade secret laws or illegally exporting sensitive equipment with possible military applications.
According to a 2024 Immigration and Customs Enforcement report, the department focused its “enforcement and removal operations on noncitizens who [were] threats to national security, public safety, and border security.”