A lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., alleges the Trump administration shared confidential asylum application details of Iranian asylum seekers with the government of Iran.
Lawyers with Public Citizen Litigation Group, representing the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, say the sharing began in March 2025 and that the complaint was filed in federal court in Washington.
The complaint alleges U.S. officials "periodically mailed or hand delivered immigration files of Iranians" and provided applications for asylum and deportation relief during monthly meetings between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Iranian Interests Section.
Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney with Public Citizen, said, "The law is very clear that information within an asylum application or other applications for similar forms of protection cannot be shared, particularly with the government that the individual is fleeing."
The lawsuit says disclosures included identifying information, familial relationships, political opinions and the reasons applicants feared the Iranian government, and it relies in part on confidential testimony from an Iranian government official.
Kirkpatrick said the administration has sent three deportation flights and more than 100 people to Iran, and that others have been deported to third countries such as Panama and the Central African Republic.
The complaint alleges Iranian officials have met with dozens of detainees at ICE facilities, that many detainees did not consent to meet with the Iranian Interests Section and that detainees told attorneys the officials already knew details from their asylum claims.
Public Citizen said it plans to seek a preliminary injunction to temporarily halt the information sharing and to notify people whose information has been shared; the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund asked a federal judge to block the government from providing confidential information and to appoint a special master to review files already shared.
Federal regulation cited in the complaint states that records kept by the Homeland Security Department and immigration courts should be protected from disclosure and that the State Department must work to ensure confidentiality if records are transmitted to State offices in other countries, and the complaint says federal rules bar sharing information that would "reveal or infer that the individual to be removed had applied for asylum."
The Homeland Security Department and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.