Trump administration deporting hundreds of Iranian citizens: Tehran | Donald Trump News

An Iranian Foreign Ministry official says the Trump administration plans to deport about 400 Iranians.

An Iranian official says the United States plans to deport hundreds of Iranian citizens in the coming weeks, with the first 120 deportees expected to arrive in Iran within days, as US President Donald Trump continues his immigration crackdown.

Hossein Noushabadi, director general for parliamentary and consular affairs at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Tasnim news agency on Tuesday that US immigration authorities plan to deport about 400 Iranians.

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Noushabadi said the first planeload of Iranian nationals would arrive “within the next one or two days” after a stop in Qatar. Qatari authorities did not immediately comment on his remarks.

Noushabadi said most of the Iranian nationals targeted had entered the US without documentation, primarily through Mexico, while some faced other immigration issues.

The deportations, which have not yet been publicly acknowledged by the Trump administration, come as tensions remain high between the two countries after the US joined its ally Israel in bombing Iran during a 12-day June conflict.

They also come as part of a wide-reaching crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers in the US, with Trump pledging to carry out the largest deportation operation in the country’s history.

Noushabadi said on Tuesday that US authorities had unilaterally made the decision to deport the Iranian nationals without consultations with Iran.

But the New York Times, citing anonymous Iranian officials, reported that the deportations were “the culmination of months of discussions between the two countries”.

The US news outlet said some of the Iranians had volunteered to leave after being in detention centres for months, while others had not.

A US-chartered flight took off from Louisiana on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Qatar late on Tuesday so the deportees could be transferred to a Tehran-bound flight, a US official said.

The White House and the US Department of State did not immediately respond to requests from the Reuters news agency for comment.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has set out to deport a record number of people living in the US.

However, his administration has struggled to increase deportation levels, even as it has created new avenues to send migrants to countries other than their own.

In February, the US deported 119 people from different countries, including Iran, to Panama as part of an agreement between the two nations.