US Deports 120 Iranians Back to Tehran

The deportation of Iranians, not yet publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government, comes as tensions remain high between the two countries following the American bombings of Iranian nuclear sites in June.

Meanwhile, the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran this past week over its nuclear program, putting new pressure on the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy.

In the lead up to and after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, a large number of Iranians fled to the U.S. In the decades since, the U.S. had been sensitive in allowing those fleeing from Iran over religious, sexual or political persecution to seek residency.

In the 2024 fiscal year, for instance, the U.S. deported only 20 Iranians, according to statistics from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

U.S. authorities arrested 1,710 Iranians crossing the border illegally from Mexico from September 2021 to November 2024, the latest publicly available data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Numbers rose steadily during that period, with 130 arrests last October.

Iranians were granted asylum in 152 of 372 decisions from September through August, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That is a 41% success rate, higher than the 25% success rate for all nationalities.

Iran has criticized Washington for hosting dissidents and others in the past. U.S. federal prosecutors have accused Iran of hiring hitmen to target dissidents as well in America.

It is unclear exactly what has changed now in American policy. However, since returning to the White House, Trump has cracked down on those living in the U.S. illegally.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as well as President Masoud Pezeshkian, both attended the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week as a last-ditch effort to stop the reimposed sanctions. However, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei boxed in their efforts by describing diplomacy with the U.S. as a “sheer dead end.”