U.S. shared confidential immigration details with Iranian government, lawsuit alleges

The Trump administration is providing the Iranian government with confidential information about Iranians seeking asylum in the United States, a civil rights group alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday morning.

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The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund accused the federal government of reaching an agreement with Iranian officials last year to periodically “share the immigration files and information of Iranians” in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Since March last year, U.S. government officials have “periodically mailed or hand delivered” immigration records that include sensitive information about Iranian detainees such as final orders of removal, applications for relief and asylum applications, the lawsuit alleged.

Michael Kirkpatrick, a lawyer with Public Citizen ’s litigation group, was representing the nonprofit in the case.

In the lawsuit, Kirkpatrick said that many of the affected asylum seekers are “pro-democracy protestors, members of religious minorities such as Evangelical Christians, or members of the LGBTQ community who seek refuge in the United States because of the grave dangers they face in Iran.”

Disclosing their confidential information to the Iranian government “violates the asylum seekers’ confidentiality rights, endangers their family members and acquaintances who may still be residing in Iran, and puts those who are subject to removal to Iran,” Kirkpatrick wrote in the lawsuit, “at risk of persecution, torture, and death following their arrival in Iran.”

In a statement to NBC News on Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security denied the allegation accusing ICE of sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government, calling them “FALSE.”

“ICE meets and works to get travel documents for detainees with every country” and “provides illegal aliens the opportunity to contact their consular post and facilitates consular access to detained individuals, in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and agency policy,” DHS said in its statement.

The plaintiffs want the federal government’s agreement with Iran to be declared unlawful. They are seeking an order allowing affected Iranian detainees to have their immigration cases reopened to determine whether they’re entitled to asylum or other relief.

As part of that effort, Public Citizen is working on compiling sworn written declarations from Iranians in immigration detention centers as it prepares to file a motion requesting a preliminary injunction, a spokesperson for the progressive advocacy organization told NBC News.

The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran and typically does not cooperate with its regime on immigration cases.

Washington has viewed Iran as an arch adversary ever since the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 in the wake of the country’s Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western monarchy. For decades, the U.S. government has given a sympathetic hearing to Iranians seeking refuge from the Iranian regime’s repression.