War Scrambles Trump Admin's Fragile Efforts To Deport Iranian Nationals

In early February, a federal judge was prepared to order the release of an Iranian national, Esmael Rajabi, from ICE custody, finding that the Trump administration was nowhere near effectuating his deportation.

But the administration convinced U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to wait, insisting that an update from the Iranian government — perhaps with the necessary travel documents to deport Rajabi — was imminent.

Then the Trump administration went to war against Iran. Days after the Feb. 28 strikes, the administration told the George W. Bush-appointed judge that Rajabi’s deportation “remains under review in Tehran” but had hit a snag “due to recent airspace closure.”

It was a euphemistic reference to a war that has not only scrambled the global economy but put a crimp in ICE’s plans to deport dozens of Iranian nationals on delicately negotiated charter flights coordinated with the Iranian government.

Frosty relations between Tehran and Washington have long made the deportation of Iranians from the U.S. challenging. Many Iranians who fled the ayatollah’s regime have resided in the U.S. for years while immigration authorities were unable to carry out their deportation. Some won legal protections from being sent back to Iran after convincing immigration authorities that they faced threats of torture or persecution.

But several deportation flights to Iran have occurred since late last year — even as the Trump administration’s relationship with Tehran grew more bellicose — and others were under discussion as recently as February. In fact, the Trump administration indicated in court papers that a charter flight had been scheduled for this week, only to be called off because “removal flights to Iran have temporarily ceased” amid the war.

Now federal judges are confronting the realities of the conflict as they decide whether Iranians held by ICE face a realistic chance of being deported in the near-term. If not, the courts are bound by constitutional requirements to release detainees from immigration custody — or at least give them a chance to make their case for release at a bond hearing.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to address the impact of the Iran war on its deportation efforts but guaranteed it would deport anyone who judges find “have no right to be in this country.”

“We will continue to use all lawful options to deport illegal aliens,” the department said in a statement.

But on Thursday, the Trump administration conceded that one man — who had obtained an Iranian passport and was scheduled to be deported on a flight this month — should be released because “there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.”

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a California-based Biden appointee, recently ordered the release of an Iranian man with an extensive criminal history in part because there was no “significant likelihood, or indeed any likelihood at all, that Petitioner may be removed to Iran.”

At the heart of the challenge for judges are the constitutional limits on ICE detention for people who have been ordered deported from the U.S. Federal law requires detention for 90 days for those with “final orders” of removal — people who have exhausted all of their options to challenge their deportation in immigration and federal court — while ICE arranges their departure.

But in cases where the deportees’ home countries refuse to take them — and no alternate countries have agreed to be a substitute — the calculus changes. The Supreme Court has held that detaining people with final orders of deportation for more than six months raises constitutional questions and generally requires their release from custody.

That was the challenge for U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson as she evaluated a bid for release by Iranian national Azad Rahmani. Rahmani, an ethnic Kurd who fled Iran in 2023, told the court that he feared persecution if he returned. Rahmani skipped an immigration hearing in July and was soon arrested by immigration officials near the Canadian border.

On March 6, Evanson, noting the week-old war, ruled that Rahmani’s seven-month detention necessitated a chance for him to plead his case for bond: “Because Petitioner has already been detained for over seven months under conditions similar to a prison and has many months — if not years — left before there is any possibility of release or removal, the Court will grant his petition,” the Biden appointee wrote.

A person familiar with Rahmani’s case, granted anonymity to describe a pending matter, said the immigration judge handling the bond hearing rejected Rahmani’s bid for release, labeling him a flight risk.

In another case, U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal ordered the immediate releaseof Saeed Tarki, a 63-year-old man with four U.S. citizen children who has spent 35 years in the U.S. He was ordered deported in 2003 and ICE detained him in 2012 after an unspecified conviction, but he was released a few months later after Iran refused to issue travel documents. Despite no further encounters with the law, he was arrested abruptly In December 2025 amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation push.

Bernal noted that “ICE has not communicated with Petitioner since December except to inform him that a request for travel documents was made on February 18, 2026.”

“The Court determines that the Government is no closer to removing Petitioner than it has been for the several decades since Petitioner’s order of removal was issued,” the Obama-appointed judge concluded on March 11.