US deportation flight of Iranian detainees cancelled at last minute

A U.S. deportation flight carrying at least eight Iranian nationals was abruptly cancelled on Sunday morning, an attorney for the detainees said.

The detainees had been loaded onto a plane in Mesa, Arizona, for a journey that would have taken them to the country of Georgia and then on to Pakistan, where an Iranian Interests Section official was to arrange their onward travel to Iran.

Attorney Ali Rahnama of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, who filed emergency motions for the detainees, said the flight was called off without explanation. Court documents unsealed in a civil lawsuit show the Trump administration had, as recently as mid‑October, planned to deport the Iranians to Iran via an unnamed third country, despite the ongoing war there.

The lawsuit, filed in July, alleges the U.S. government illegally shared confidential asylum information with Iranian officials. It also notes that three deportation flights between September 2025 and January 2026 resulted in over 100 Iranians being sent back.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the cancelled flight, citing policy against discussing removal operations. Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Biden‑appointed judge, has ordered the government to give the court 24‑hour notice of any finalized deportation plans and five days’ written notice before any removal is carried out.

The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund has called for an end to the removal flights, warning they could mark the first deportations to Iran since the war began.

Source: ABC News. Photo: Joseph Walker / Pexels.