Newly disclosed emails show U.S. immigration officials coordinated directly with Iranian authorities to deport more than 100 Iranian nationals on three flights between September 2025 and January 2026, even as tensions escalated between the two countries.
The correspondence, obtained by the National Iranian American Council, reveals that Iranian Embassy officials requested additions to deportation passenger lists and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sometimes accommodated those requests. During a June 2025 military conflict, then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and removal operations head Marcos Charles labeled the repatriations a [