US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accelerated efforts to deport Iranian nationals in the aftermath of the 12-Day War, emails obtained by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) show.
The emails detailed by the NIAC concern deportation surges in 2025, which it claims were ordered directly from the White House. During June of that year, the organization claims ICE ramped up efforts to arrest Iranian nationals, apprehending 192.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons ordered this wave of arrests only days before the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities and entered the war, the report claims. Despite ICE officials noting that Iran's airspace was closed and that the country was in internal chaos, the expedited process went ahead.
This action led to a deportation flight on September 30, which landed in Qatar in order to transfer deportees headed to Iran onto another flight.
Report suggests Israeli government could have had involvement on ICE proceedings
During this stopover in Qatar, authorities realized that one Iranian deportee wasn't on the flight manifest but was still repatriated to Iran, the organization said.
“These documents expose an operation that demands answers from the highest levels of government,” said NIAC Policy Director Ryan Costello.
“ICE somehow deported an Iranian who was not even on the flight manifest, an extraordinary breakdown that raises serious questions about unlawful or involuntary cross-border transfer.
Moreover, the report states that an ICE attaché in the US Embassy branch in Tel Aviv was "heavily involved" in the process to deport Iranians. Based on this, the report appeared to suggest that the Israeli government could have influenced the operation, though no evidence was provided.
“As Israel and the US were dropping bombs on Iran and the President was warning Iranians to evacuate major cities, ICE in Tel Aviv was coordinating a mass deportation operation to force vulnerable Iranians in the US back to the country being bombed,” said Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council.
“The same administration that would later promise Iranians ‘help is on the way’ was working to accelerate deportations of asylum seekers back to Iran, even as officials acknowledged that Iran’s airspace was closed and people were desperately trying to flee the country.”
“The US government cannot claim to stand with the Iranian people while bombing their country, arresting Iranians here at home, and forcing people back into the danger it helped create,” said Abdi. “We need to know who was wrongly put on that plane, why ICE’s Tel Aviv office was so deeply involved, and exactly what the White House ordered."
"NIAC is committed to dragging these facts into the light and fighting to ensure Iranians are not treated as disposable collateral of US foreign and immigration policy,” Abdi concluded.
The NIAC has criticized foreign intervention in Iran extensively, including sanctions and military action, though it has condemned the regime in Tehran and previously stated its support for Iranians to overthrow the Islamic Republic.