Iran confirms it is receiving second deportation flight from US
Two months after Iran received its first deportation flight from the US under the Trump administration, it has confirmed a second flight is now on its way.
"Within the coming days, approximately 50 to 55 of these Iranian nationals will return to Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters at a press briefing on Sunday.
"The deportation of Iranians who were returned from the US [is] apparently for legal reasons and violating immigration laws, which is a claim made by American authorities," he added.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had called on the US government to halt the flight, given "individuals with credible fear of retaliation and abuses by Iranian authorities" who were on board.
The group said in a statement that at least one detainee had been physically assaulted by guards while in detention, and that Iranian nationals in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody have been told they will be "forced on this deportation flight against their will - with one detainee being told they would be drugged if necessary".
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Middle East Eye reached out to ICE and was only told that “ICE does not confirm or deny specific flights for operational security", but that "under President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem, ICE removal flights are occurring every day".
NIAC's president, Jamal Abdi, told MEE that there has been a "shocking lack of transparency" from the agency.
"We've seen reports that claim there are as many as 2,000 Iranians who are in detention, and of them, we don't really know what's their status," he said.
Everyone in ICE detention is intended for deportation, but some can be released on bond back into the US as their case plays out. Others sometimes sign voluntary deportation papers instead of potentially languishing in holding centres that have been described as being worse than federal prisons.
The rest can end up in detention for years until the US government decides to put them on a deportation flight that could be headed to a third country they've never been to.
But it's not just undocumented immigrants that are bearing the brunt.
Trump has demanded the removal of legal immigrants who may have had run-ins with the law. Cases that have emerged over the past nine months include things like writing a cheque that later bounced, missing a court date because of a home address change, or being in possession of marijuana in a state where it is permissible. Federal law considers possession of all recreational drugs illegal.
Prisoner swap?
Baghaei said on Sunday that Tehran is aware "racist actions against foreign nationals - particularly those from countries in our region, and especially Iran - have intensified" in the US.
Iranian nationals, he said, "have faced harassment under various pretexts".
University of Tehran world politics professor Foad Izadi told MEE that by taking in their own nationals, the Iranian government "is using this opportunity to say, look, we are on the side of Iran and Iranians, even if they didn't like us and they left the country, because the other side has been using propaganda outlets to say that the Iranian government is against Iranians, and that Iranians need to free themselves".
"This is an opportunity for the Iranian government to say, 'at the end of the day, it's your government that's going to protect you and take you back if the Americans kick you out'," he added.
Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, the first Iranian American elected to public office in the state where most of the Iranians in custody are believed to be held, said in a statement earlier this year that ICE was rounding up Iranians "not out of concern for public safety, but to fill arbitrary deportation quotas".
"The implication by this administration that Iranian Americans are more likely to engage in terrorism or criminal activity is absurd, false and outrageous," she said.
As of the end of October, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it has carried out 527,000 forcible deportations separate from the 1.6 million people who "self-deported".
Earlier this year, ICE director Todd Lyons suggested to the broadcaster NewsNation that his agency had indeed stepped up its targeting of Iranians, following the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, which culminated in an unprecedented US attack on Iran's three main nuclear sites.
Not long after that attack, ICE announced it had picked up 130 Iranian nationals.
"There was clearly a pattern after the war in June of many Iranians suddenly being detained and targeted. Now, whether that has kept up... it's very hard to measure, but just from my vantage point, it doesn't seem like that has accelerated," Abdi told MEE when asked if Iranians are still being specifically targeted, given that immigration raids have rapidly escalated all over the country.
Last month, University of Oklahoma professor and Iranian national Vahid Abedini was picked up by immigration officers as he was on his way to board a flight at Oklahoma City airport.
Abedini has a valid work visa in the US. He was in custody for three days before being released.
"They essentially just let him go and said, 'Oh, we just picked him up for questioning,'" Abdi told MEE.
"Some of us are wondering: Are individuals being picked up to potentially be used in some sort of a prisoner swap with Iran? I mean, these are real questions."
Abedini now reportedly fears retaliation, even though his workplace and his influential connections stepping in have made a difference in his case, Abdi explained to MEE.
"This seems to be the difference between people being completely victimised by the system and people actually being granted some degree of legal treatment. But really, it seems completely arbitrary. It's: Who do you know? How much media coverage can you get? Do you know elected officials?"
NIAC is suing ICE after the agency failed to fulfil a Freedom of Information Act request concerning its arrests and deportations of Iranian nationals.
The filing demands that documents be released pertaining to the exact number of Iranians in ICE custody; the duration of their detentions; the locations of their initial arrests; the number of deportations; internal communications about removal flights to Iran and third countries; and messages between ICE leadership and political actors involved in removal decisions.
While Iran will always take back its nationals, Izadi said, the fact that two deportation flights have now been sent from the US to Iran - while Iran is blacklisted because of the travel ban - "is damaging American soft power".
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