Emails Show Iran Helped Pick ICE Deportees

Newly released ICE emails show U.S. immigration officials worked directly with Iranian representatives — often through Qatari intermediaries — to arrange three deportation flights that returned more than 100 Iranians, and that Iranian officials had influence over who was on the manifests.

The hundreds of emails were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday. The Intercept, which was given the trove exclusively, reported the first story on Aug. 18.

The records cover flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026, according to the Associated Press and The Independent.

They also show one man who was not on the final manifest was put on a plane by mistake — and sent to Iran anyway.

What the emails say

Iranian representatives asked for changes to proposed passenger lists, and U.S. officials sometimes went along.

"Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases," an unidentified ICE employee wrote in late August 2025, about a month before the first flight.

Days later, another official reported meeting with the "Director at the Iranian Embassy" and wrote: "Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process."

On Sept. 26, 2025 — three days before the first flight — an ICE official wrote that the Iranian Embassy was still asking to add three more Iranians. Requests made on the day of departure were rejected, according to the records.

The Intercept reported that immigration officials indicated they complied with an Iranian request to repatriate three specific people living in the United States.

The Intercept also identified Joshua Coster, whose email signature lists him as the Enforcement and Removal Operations attaché at ICE's U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, as the main liaison with the Qatari government over landing permits, passenger manifests and the transfer in Doha to a Qatar Airways charter for the final leg to Tehran. Most other correspondents are redacted.

The mix-up is in Coster's own words. "An Iranian national not included on the final manifest we sent to Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight," he wrote on Sept. 30, 2025. "This is unfortunate." A colleague replied: "I have no idea how the case/person got through to the plane." After the Doha stopover, the accidental passenger was sent on to Iran.