Eight Iranian nationals were put on a plane in Mesa, Arizona, on Sunday morning for a deportation flight that was meant to take them first to the country of Georgia and then on to Pakistan.
The flight was canceled without explanation, according to Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees and who spoke to some of those slated for repatriation.
Rahnama said a senior official from the Iranian Interests Section, an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs, visited the eight detainees who boarded the plane.
Those detainees were told that the Iranian government would transport them from Pakistan to Iran, he said.
Court documents unsealed days ago in a civil lawsuit filed by the fund showed the Trump administration, as recently as mid-October, said it had plans to deport the Iranians to Iran, even as the war there drags on, via an unnamed third country.
The lawsuit was filed in July and alleges that the U.S. government illegally shared confidential information about Iranians seeking asylum in the U.S. with Iranian officials.
The administration did not specify in the October court records when it would carry out the deportations.
But in the past week, roughly a dozen Iranian nationals in immigration detention said they were notified that they were scheduled for an upcoming deportation flight to Pakistan and then to Iran, according to numerous attorneys who have since confirmed those plans with DHS.
Three deportation flights to Iran occurred between September 2025 and January 2026, with over 100 Iranian nationals deported.
The administration's confirmation of the new plans amid the war that began in February highlights its resolve in carrying out its hardline immigration crackdown, which has involved ramping up removals, including to places that critics say could endanger the lives of the returnees.
In response to questions Sunday from The Associated Press, the press office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on “prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger manifests, destinations, or individual case details,” nor would the agency confirm future removal operations.
“As promised, the Trump Administration is employing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history,” the statement said.
In the litigation brought by the Iranian immigrant advocacy group, at least a dozen Iranian detainees have said they've been contacted by Iranian officials who had knowledge of sensitive information on their asylum claims.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, has not ruled on the claims.
She ordered the U.S. 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.
In a court filing Sunday, the defense fund laid out what it had learned about plans for a removal flight that day and argued that the administration may have violated the judge's directive to give advance notice of deportation plans.
Later Sunday, the government filed court documents in the case, but they were sealed and inaccessible to the public.
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund has called for a halt to the removal flights, saying in a news release that they would “reportedly mark the first deportation of Iranians to Iran since the U.S.-Iran war began.”
The group's executive director, Yasmin Chubin, said in a statement Sunday that it was difficult to comprehend why the U.S. would forcibly deport Iranians, including asylum seekers, to Iran, amid ongoing military hostilities.
The consequences of removal, Chubin said, “could be irreversible and individuals may face persecution, torture, or death.”
At least one person who had been part of the scuttled flight volunteered to go back to Iran after nearly two years of detention, Rahnama said, out of desperation to leave what he described as inhumane imprisonment.
It's unclear how many other deportees may have volunteered to leave.
