The US has deported 120 Iranians under an expulsion campaign that raises fears over the potential persecution of returnees.
As many as 400 Iranians are being sent back to their home country, according to Hossein Noushabadi, a foreign affairs official.
“One hundred and twenty people should be deported and flown home over the next couple of days,” he told the semi-official Tasnim news agency. Noushabadi added that most had crossed into the US from Mexico illegally. Others faced immigration problems.
The US has not acknowledged making the deportation deal, which marks an extremely rare moment of cooperation with Tehran.
Washington has been giving shelter to Iranians since the time of the 1979 revolution. Women’s rights activists, political dissidents, journalists, religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community are among those who have fled.
The New York Times, which first reported on the deal, said a US-chartered flight took off from Louisiana on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Iran via Qatar on Tuesday.
The deportations came after months of talks, the newspaper said.
Donald Trump plans to deport a record number of people who are living in the US without legal status, blaming a high number of illegal border crossings under Joe Biden, his predecessor as US president.
However, his officials have struggled to raise expulsion levels.
The identities of the Iranians and their reasons for going to the US were not immediately clear. Some had volunteered to leave after being in detention centres for months but others had not.
In forcibly deporting people, the US risks breaching international treaties that forbid “refoulement” – returning an individual to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened.
According to the New York Times, which cited an unnamed Iranian official, the deportees have been given reassurances that they will be safe and will not face any problems. Many were disappointed and some frightened, the official said.
UN human rights experts warned in July that “any diplomatic assurances as to the safety of transferred migrants provided by other countries cannot be taken at face value”.
The statement came after the US deported to Panama 119 people from different countries, including Iran.
Washington and Tehran rarely cooperate, and relations reached a low point in June when the US launched bombing raids on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Trump insisted the strikes had “totally obliterated” the sites, although the US military disagreed, saying the nuclear programme had been set back by a year or two.
Agencies contributed to this report
