U.S. President Donald Trump speaks, as he signs an executive order in the Oval Office, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. February 14, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Attorneys for a group of Iranian nationals in ICE custody say the Trump administration was preparing to deport them back to Iran on a pre-dawn flight Sunday, in apparent violation of a federal court order.
In an overnight filing in federal court in Washington, D.C., the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said it learned Saturday evening that ICE planned to remove 11 Iranian nationals, 10 men and one woman, at about 4 a.m. Sunday.
According to the filing, the group was to be flown to Islamabad, Pakistan, with a refueling stop in the country of Georgia, then transferred to Iran on Tuesday. The detainees had been issued 15-day temporary visas to Pakistan, the filing states.
The group submitted the filing as a “notice of apparent violation” of an Oct. 15 order in its lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials.
The plan came to light through the U.S.-citizen wife of one of the detainees, according to the filing. She told attorneys that her husband learned the details in person on Friday, when an official of the Iranian government met with him and six other detained men at a detention facility in Arizona, “announced the schedule, and, on request, showed him the flight list bearing his name and the names of ten other Iranian nationals.”
The man has been in ICE custody since October 2025, according to the filing. He was moved from Georgia to Louisiana on Oct. 28 and then to Arizona on Nov. 1.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney, who flagged the filing, noted that it “follows a similar planned flight of Afghan nationals stopped last week by a court.”
It was not immediately clear whether the flight took off or whether the court has intervened.
OVERNIGHT: Attorneys for Iranian ICE detainees say the Trump administration was seeking to hurriedly deport 10-11 Iranian nationals back to Iran (via Pakistan) in violation of court orders. This follows a similar planned flight of Afghan nationals stopped last week by a court. https://t.co/jOYgpxsT76
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 8, 2026
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