A U.S. deportation flight of Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly canceled Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke to some of the detainees slated for repatriation.
At least eight Iranians were loaded onto a plane Sunday morning in Mesa, Arizona, for a deportation flight headed to the country of Georgia, then on to Pakistan, according to Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees. The flight was canceled without explanation, he said.
Court documents unsealed days ago in a civil lawsuit filed by the fund showed the Trump administration as recently as mid-October said it had plans to deport the Iranians to Iran, even as the war there drags on, via an unnamed third country. The lawsuit, filed in July, alleges that the U.S. government illegally shared confidential information about Iranians seeking asylum in the United States with Iranian officials.
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund has called for a halt to the removal flights, saying they would "reportedly mark the first deportation of Iranians to Iran since the U.S.-Iran war began."
In response to questions Sunday from The Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on "prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger manifests, destinations, or individual case details," nor would the agency confirm future removal operations.
According to Rahnama, the eight detainees who boarded the flight on Sunday were visited by a senior official with the Iranian Interests Section, an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, and were told that the Iranian government would transport them from Pakistan to Iran. At least one person who had been part of the scuttled flight volunteered to go back to Iran after nearly two years of detention, Rahnama said.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes has not ruled on the claims but ordered the U.S. government to give the court 24-hour notice of any finalized plans to deport Iranians to Iran or to any other country, and five days' written notice before any such deportation is carried out. There were three deportation flights to Iran between September 2025 and January 2026, with over 100 Iranian nationals deported.
