Lawsuit says U.S. immigratoin agencies illegally shared confidential information on Iranian asylum seekers with Iran

By — Safiyah Riddle, Associated Press Safiyah Riddle, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/lawsuit-says-u-s-immigratoin-agencies-illegally-shared-confidential-information-on-iranian-asylum-seekers-with-iran Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Lawsuit says U.S. immigratoin agencies illegally shared confidential information on Iranian asylum seekers with Iran World Jul 7, 2026 4:38 PM EDT LOS ANGELES (AP) — A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that the Trump administration's immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings argue. The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the U.S. and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments and an ongoing war. The Department of Homeland Security denied that it is sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government. WATCH: How the Supreme Court immigration rulings could impact asylum in the U.S. Roughly 600 Iranians were put in immigration detention last year, according to public records obtained by the National Iranian American Council. In June, an Iranian woman was among the two dozen migrants the U.S. deported to the Central African Republic — in a marked departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee. The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the individual getting deported applied for asylum. "Congress made these confidentiality protections mandatory precisely because lives depend on them, and no agency and no administration, of either party, may set them aside," said Ali Rahnama, the interim executive director of Iranian American Legal Defense Fund. Starting in March 2025, the U.S. State Department arranged monthly meetings with Iranian officials, using the Pakistani embassy as an intermediary, in which U.S. officials shared detailed, sensitive information about detained Iranian immigrants who the U.S. government hoped to deport, lawyers for the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and the Public Citizen Litigation Group wrote in a complaint. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. The information included details about asylum applications filed by people who say they were persecuted for converting to Christianity, for their sexuality or for participating in the Wom