Trump administration held secret talks with Iran on deporting Iranians during the war, court documents unsealed Thursday show
President Donald Trump's administration held secret talks with Iran on deporting Iranians even as the war between the two countries dragged on, court documents obtained by the Associated Press and unsealed on Thursday show. The documents show the administration maintained contacts with Iranian officials during the war over removals — submitting travel documents and working out 'possible avenues for removal' — and said as recently as mid-October that it had plans to deport Iranians through an unnamed third country, though when was unclear. The judge in the case, Ana Reyes, ordered the government to give the court 24 hours' notice of any finalised deportation plan and five days' written notice before any deportation is carried out. The disclosure emerged from a lawsuit alleging the administration's immigration agencies shared confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government — an allegation the Department of Homeland Security denies in its asylum-records form. Whether any new deportation flight happens, and when, is not yet known.
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Key points
- Unsealed court documents (obtained by AP): the administration kept contacts with Iranian officials during the war over removals — travel documents and 'possible avenues for removal'.
- As recently as mid-October the administration said it had plans to deport Iranians through an unnamed third country; when was unclear.
- Judge Ana Reyes ordered 24 hours' notice to the court of any finalised plan and five days' written notice before any deportation.
- The underlying lawsuit alleges agencies shared asylum seekers' confidential information with Iran — DHS denies sharing asylum application records; that allegation is Disputed, not a finding.
What happened
The contacts are a marked departure, as AP puts it, from decades of diplomatic hostility between Washington and Tehran — the two governments have no diplomatic relations, which is why an Iranian Interest Section inside Pakistan's embassy in Washington handles consular affairs, and why deportations to Iran have historically been rare. Under the current administration ICE has pushed to deport people even to countries reluctant to take them back, sometimes routing people through third countries.
The human stakes are the judge's own framing in the transcript: returnees could face persecution from a government the US president himself describes as lawless — the tension the lawsuit, Iranian American Legal Defense Fund v. Rubio et al., filed in July 2026, puts before the court.
Claim by claim
Why this label: Verified from AP's reporting of the court documents it obtained, unsealed Thursday and read in full in this run (via Military.com's full AP text, with AP's updated version in agreement). The documents themselves are the primary evidence; AP is the reader of record here, and every element of this claim is stated in AP's account of them.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Verified as the hearing transcript quoted in the unsealed documents as reported by AP, read in full in this run. The 'certain death' characterisation is the judge's, quoted as hers; the government's answer is quoted in full beside it so neither side of the exchange stands alone.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Labelled Disputed: the sharing allegation is the plaintiffs' claim in an ongoing lawsuit (court filings as reported by AP), and DHS's denial is on the record in the same reporting. This page makes no finding on whether asylum records were shared.
On the ladder: credible sources conflict, so we show both workings. One side's own statement is that side's position — never proof.
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Why this label: Verified from AP's account of the emails within the court documents, read in full in this run. The flights predate the war's current phase and are carried as the documents' record, distinct from the mid-October plans, whose timing the documents leave unclear.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Carried as Not yet verified: this is the plaintiff group's statement, reported in AP's updated version read in this run; no US or Iranian official confirmation of such a flight appears in the reporting read, and the judge's notice order means any finalised plan must be notified to the court first.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- That the contacts and the mid-October third-country plans are in the unsealed court documents AP obtained — AP's full report read in this run, its updated version in agreement.
- The judge's notice order (24 hours for a finalised plan; five days' written notice before a deportation) and the 15 October exchange, from the transcript in the documents.
- DHS's denial that it shares asylum application records with Iran, and that DHS did not immediately respond on the talks themselves (AP).
What we don't know yet
- When, or whether, any new deportation of Iranians will be carried out — the documents leave the timing unclear, and no flight had been confirmed in the reporting read.
- Which third country the mid-October plans contemplated — unnamed in the documents as reported.
- Whether confidential asylum information was in fact shared with Iran — the lawsuit's central allegation, denied by DHS, undecided by the court.
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- Iran's own account of the talks — no Iranian government statement on the deportation contacts had been read in this run.
Why it matters
Two governments at war were quietly cooperating on the one thing their hostility was supposed to make impossible: sending people back. The disclosure matters less for the flights that already happened than for the people now in US custody whose names, the lawsuit alleges, may already have reached the government they fled — and for a court that has now put itself between any future flight and the runway.
Background
Show the background timeline (4)
More than 100 Iranians are flown back to Iran on three immigration flights arranged through US–Iranian coordination, per emails in the court documents (AP).
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund files its lawsuit (Iranian American Legal Defense Fund v. Rubio et al.).
Hearing before Judge Ana Reyes: the 'certain death' exchange with the Justice Department's lawyer, per the transcript.
The court documents are unsealed; AP reports the wartime deportation talks and the mid-October third-country plans.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Published in Checking state as a standard from queue #1772 (17:40 crawl, Arab News) amplified by MANUAL 1821 (Guardian carry, clustered as the same event — worked once). Basis: AP's report of the unsealed court documents read in full in this run via two syndications. JUDGE AUDIT: (1) headline, slug, SEO title and summary state the same outcome — secret talks held during the war, shown by court documents unsealed Thursday; no layer states a new deportation as having happened. (2) The talks and plans are Verified on the documents as reported by AP; the information-sharing allegation is labelled Disputed with DHS's denial in the same claim; the legal fund's 12-detainees flight claim is Not yet verified. (3) Every number traces to AP's account: mid-October plans, 24-hour/five-day notice, more than 100 people on three flights (Sep/Dec 2025, Jan 2026), at least 12 detainees (legal fund). (5) The government's side is present in its own words (the DOJ lawyer's answer; DHS's denial); Iran's account is declared missing in the don't-know list. (6) Photo is the White House, labelled a file photo; no official video was oEmbed-verified, so none is attached. Translations: headline, summary and take labels in all 13 non-English languages at publish; this story carries no FR/AR full text, so no full-text rebuild arose.