Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - The United States is planning to deport some 400 Iranians, most of whom entered the country illegally, as part of President Donald Trump’s broader crackdown on immigration.
“In the first step, they decided to deport 120 Iranians who
entered the US illegally, most of whom through Mexico,” the Iranian foreign
ministry’s director general for parliament affairs, senior Iranian
official Hossein Noushabadi, told the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The deportation, an uncommon instance of cooperation between
the two countries, came after months of talks, according to the New York Times,
which first reported the move.
Noushabadi said the US was “planning to deport around 400
Iranians, most of whom entered the country illegally, in line with the new
anti-immigrant approach of the US government.”
The first group of 120 would reach Iran in the next one or
two days, he said.
The New York Times reported that a US-chartered flight took
off from Louisiana on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Iran via Qatar
sometime on Tuesday.
Some of the Iranians had volunteered to leave after being in
detention centers for months, and some had not, the newspaper said.
Noushabadi called on Washington to respect the rights of
Iranian migrants in the United States.
“Some (returnees) had residence permits but due to reasons
stated by the US immigration office they were included in the list. Of course,
their own consent was obtained for their return,” he said.
The White House and the US State Department did not
immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump plans to deport a record number of people living
in the US without legal status, after what he describes as high illegal border
crossings under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
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