The Iranian American Authorized Protection Fund filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Trump administration has been sharing confidential details about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian authorities.
In keeping with the grievance filed in Washington, D.C., many Iranian asylum seekers are pro-democracy protesters, members of spiritual minorities, or members of the LGBTQ group who search refuge within the U.S. “due to the grave risks they face in Iran.”
“Disclosing their confidential data to the Iranian Authorities violates the asylum seekers’ confidentiality rights, places those that are topic to elimination to Iran, straight or by way of chain refoulement by way of third international locations, prone to persecution, torture, and demise following their arrival in Iran, and endangers their members of the family and acquaintances who should be residing in Iran,” the group mentioned within the grievance.
Greater than 100 folks have been deported to Iran through the Trump administration, in line with the IALDF.
The group wrote within the grievance that whereas the U.S. authorities might coordinate logistics with receiving international locations, federal rules prohibit the sharing of knowledge that will “reveal or infer that the person to be eliminated had utilized for asylum.”
“Disclosing their confidential data to the Iranian authorities violates federal rules requiring confidentiality, endangers their members of the family and acquaintances who should be residing in Iran, and places those that are topic to elimination to Iran prone to persecution, torture, and demise following their arrival in Iran,” mentioned Public Citizen, a nonprofit client advocacy group that’s representing the IALDF.
A spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety and a consultant of the State Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from ABC Information.
The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety seal is displayed forward of an anticipated press convention on the FEMA Nationwide Response Coordination Middle in Washington, January 24, 2026.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
The grievance alleges that the Trump administration has continued to share confidential data through the present struggle between the U.S. and Iran. The group claims the 2 governments held month-to-month conferences to share the immigration recordsdata of Iranians in ICE custody, together with remaining orders of elimination and functions for asylum.
Whereas the month-to-month in-person conferences reportedly stopped earlier than the struggle started on Feb. 28, the group alleges that ICE has “continued to mail or hand ship doc packages to the Iranian Curiosity Part.”
The grievance additionally alleges that Iranian officers have met with dozens of detainees at ICE services.
“Most of the Iranian detainees didn’t consent to fulfill with the Iranian Curiosity Part officers however had been required to take action by ICE,” the submitting says.
“In keeping with Iranian detainees who met with an Iranian Curiosity Part official, the official had information of their immigration instances, together with the main points of their asylum functions,” the swimsuit mentioned. “These nonconsensual conferences with the Curiosity Part official solidified the detainees’ perception that they’d been recognized to the exact same repressive authorities that they’d fled.”
The IALDF is asking a federal decide in Washington to dam the federal government from offering confidential data to the Iranian authorities and to nominate a particular grasp to overview the recordsdata of Iranian detainees which have already been shared.
