A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the Trump administration of illegally sharing confidential asylum application details with the Iranian government, alleging a secretive, monthslong exchange that legal advocates say has put hundreds of vulnerable detainees, including pro-democracy protesters, religious converts and LGBTQ individuals, at risk of imprisonment or worse if deported.
The suit, filed in US District Court in Washington by the Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of the Iranian American Legal Defence Fund, names the US Department of Homeland Security, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the US State Department as defendants. It alleges that since March 2025, US officials have “periodically mailed or hand-delivered immigration files of Iranians” in ICE custody to Iran’s Interests Section, the diplomatic body that handles Tehran’s consular affairs inside the United States, during recurring monthly meetings between the two governments.
The US Department of Homeland Security has denied the allegation, according to the Associated Press, though it did not immediately provide additional details disputing the specific claims outlined in the complaint.
Detainees Say Iranian Officials Already Knew Their Secrets
According to the complaint, the alarm was first raised by detainees themselves, who told attorneys they had been summoned into meetings with senior Iranian Interests Section officials who appeared to already possess detailed knowledge of their asylum claims. Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney with Public Citizen who is representing the plaintiffs, said the nature of the disclosures set this case apart from ordinary immigration data-sharing disputes. “They shouldn’t even reveal information from which one could infer that somebody had sought asylum,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick said the shared material reportedly included identifying details about detainees’ participation in pro-democracy demonstrations, their religious conversions to Christianity, and their sexual orientation — categories of information that, if traced back to Tehran, could expose both the individuals and their relatives still living in Iran to serious harm. “That information could put them in grave risk upon return,” he said, warning that consequences could include detention, interrogation, imprisonment or torture, as well as danger to family members who remain in the country.
The lawsuit also cites confidential testimony from an Iranian government official corroborating the data-sharing arrangement, though that account has not been independently verified by outside news organisations. Public Citizen said it intends to seek a preliminary injunction to immediately halt the practice and require that any detainees whose information was disclosed be personally notified.
A Legal Line That Advocates Say Was Crossed
Federal regulations governing asylum applications generally shield records held by the US Department of Homeland Security and immigration courts from disclosure, and require the State Department to safeguard confidentiality when such records are transmitted to US offices abroad.
Kirkpatrick argued that those protections apply with particular force when the information in question could be shared with the very government an applicant is fleeing. “The law is very clear that information within an asylum application or other applications for similar forms of protection cannot be shared, particularly with the government that the individual is fleeing,” he said.
The complaint further alleges that formal applications for deportation relief and asylum were handed over during recurring meetings between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Iranian Interests Section, and that detainees had supplied the information to their case files trusting in confidentiality protections they understood would shield it from Tehran.
In a statement, Kirkpatrick framed the allegations as a stark illustration of the administration’s immigration priorities. “Despite the US’s ongoing war with Iran, the Trump administration seems more committed to mass deportation than protecting human lives,” he said.
Deportations Continued Even as War Broke Out
The lawsuit lands against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating US-Iran relationship and an aggressive deportation push that has, according to Kirkpatrick, sent three flights and more than one hundred people back to Iran, with additional detainees deported to third countries including Panama and the Central African Republic.
Roughly six hundred Iranians were held in immigration detention over the past year, according to public records obtained by the National Iranian American Council.
Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as four hundred Iranians could be returned under an understanding reached with the Trump administration, and deportation flights followed that month, then again in December, and once more in late January 2026, just weeks before the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel and Iran, and shortly after a violent Iranian government crackdown on domestic protesters.
Some of those removed on the September, December and January flights were themselves asylum seekers, according to earlier reporting.
The broader immigration enforcement campaign under which the alleged data-sharing occurred has been sweeping in scope; the US Department of Homeland Security has reported more than 600,000 deportations and said roughly 1.9 million immigrants voluntarily left the country in 2025 alone.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations.
The case is now before the US District Court in Washington, where Public Citizen has said it will press for emergency relief to freeze the alleged information-sharing while the litigation proceeds.
