Iran Checked the Names, ICE Delivered the People

ICE - Charters to Tehran While the Bombs Were Falling. Part 2

A transport of people back to their country reads in these emails like a shipping order. Call sign and aircraft model are recorded, neatly listed as if on a freight manifest. The captain's name, however, is still pending, the message says, because the crew will not be assigned until 10 days before the mission. Read from beginning to end, the documents show an agency at work that has perfected a process: flying Iranians out to a government that Washington at the very same time accused of murdering its own citizens. Part 1 showed that it happened. This part shows how, from the first email to the landing. And the how is worse.

Also read Part 1 of our extensive investigation: ICE Charters to Tehran While the Bombs Were Falling - Part 1

The first thread begins in the spring. On May 21, 2025, weeks before bombs fell on Iran, officials from Enforcement and Removal Operations met with those responsible for the Iran Desk at the State Department and presented the latest cases, 10 in all. The number would increase, they said, most came from the same office; that was enough for a small operation, and the cases were ready to fly. An offer to the State Department, not a demand, more like registering goods they intended to get rid of. That is how it began, with 10 names, presented like a first sample shipment, and the promise that more would soon follow.

Then came June 19, right in the middle of the 12 days when bombs were falling on Iran. Then-acting director Todd Lyons typed a line on his BlackBerry that left no room for doubt: "Yes. Prioritize initiating target cases." Marcos Charles passed it along and demanded a plan to deport all removable Iranians in custody, saying they needed it "as soon as possible." Later that same day came the next instruction: get the State Department involved first thing in the morning, because it needed to help find a solution for this "White House priority." Less than 4 weeks separated the first presentation from that order, and in between came a war.

The response from below came that same June 19 and was matter-of-fact. Iran was not cooperating and was not issuing travel documents in time. Because of the war, Iranian airspace was "closed to everyone until further notice," not just to the United States. The land borders were also causing problems, and neighboring countries were temporarily opening them specifically for those fleeing Iran. Inside the same agency that wanted to send people in, an official noted that others were pouring out for their lives. Just 24 hours later, the tone was more confident: the team had found workable routes. A no quickly became a how.

The machinery that now kicked into motion stretched across continents. At the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv sat ICE's field office, where attaché Joshua Coster maintained the connection with Qatar. In Cairo, a regional attaché handled the diplomatic notes and landing-clearance requests. Charter logistics were based with ICE Air Operations in Mesa, Arizona, under the title Special High-Risk Charters. A network moving people out of the United States while that same country was dropping bombs on their destination.

The first major attempt came at the end of August and reached far beyond Iran. On August 26, a country-clearance request went out from Mesa with the subject line "ICE CHARTER MISSION TO EGYPT, QATAR, AND INDIA ON AUGUST 26, 2025; 305 ALIENS." ICE Air Operations requested clearance for an escorted removal mission, with India listed as the destination country. The response was to be sent by cable back to headquarters in Mesa and carry a fixed identifier in the subject line. 305 people on one aircraft, spread across 3 countries. That plan fell apart, like so much else in those weeks, over approvals that came too late. But it shows how far the agency was willing to reach to get people out, if necessary halfway around the world.

Three days later, on August 29, a memo shows how tightly the lines to Tehran had already been drawn. An acting unit chief for the Middle East and East Africa described a conversation with the director of the Iranian Embassy in Doha. The director had asked why the previously planned charter had not taken place; he and the ambassador in Doha had known about it. Approval had not been obtained from the right offices, especially not from the ambassador. Iran had demanded that the manifest be changed and the removal process accelerated. The director offered more than approvals. He was willing to travel to Louisiana to issue travel documents and verify the citizenship of those slated for deportation. And he wanted to interview some people of his choosing on site; an official noted that he could arrange it and make sure the man spoke "with the right people." A representative of the regime was supposed to question detainees inside an American detention facility and decide on their papers.

On September 1 came the solution, and it had an airline's name attached to it. Coster reported that he had met with Qatar's Interior Ministry and spoken with Qatar Airways; both conversations had concerned the failed mission from the week before. The Interior Ministry now assured him that Iran had approved the concept, and the airline was once again willing to provide a chartered aircraft for a plane-to-plane transfer in Doha. From there, a second charter would take the Iranians to Tehran. Coster drew a line that says a great deal about the bookkeeping behind this operation. Once the manifest went out, no one could be added, because from that point on others would be working from it, including the Iranian Embassy in Doha and Qatar's Interior Ministry. Qatar Airways also needed it for final coordination. Removing someone, however, was always possible: "Individuals can be removed without issue." A person on that list could be taken off like an item being canceled, but once the list was sent, no one could simply be written onto it.

On September 3, an official put in writing where all of this had begun. It had started as an Iran initiative, with a special charter to Doha that would bring the Iranians to a connecting Qatar Airways flight to Tehran. To make better use of the aircraft, he wrote, he had wanted to add other people. From the same period came praise worth lingering over: it sounded as though the team had "built a good working relationship with the Iran Desk in D.C." What began as an Iran initiative grew into a mass operation.

On September 8 came the breakdown. Russia made up the largest group, "73 Russia cases," 19 of them scheduled for commercial removal that same month, with travel documents still missing in 3 cases; shortly afterward, another case brought the "new total: 74." The rest was compiled "along with the 73 Russians." Iran accounted for 105 cases, Egypt for 30. Jordan had 18 names on the list. There were also 2 cases from Guantánamo, one ready for removal and listed under Proclamation 212f. The internal system counted 390 cases with final orders. Cases with no passport copy on file were marked in red. For those without sufficient travel documents, an official wrote that he would push for documents to be issued, because the director had said the necessary verification should be easy to obtain. A red mark helped determine who would fly next.

That same September 8, the money was also out in the open. For the Egypt and Russia legs, an airline responded: "Greetings from EGYPTAIR Charter Department." The quote factored in deicing, if needed, and war-risk insurance, if applicable. The net price excluded taxes and fees; catering would be in Economy Class, while all services would be "in Business Class." Payment would be in U.S. dollars, in cash or by wire transfer. The price could still change before confirmation, the message said, and the airline asked for the final passenger count quickly so it could select the appropriate aircraft type. The number of people determined the model of the plane. From the operations side came the short response that same day: "We're good to go on our end." They asked for the Egypt and Russia manifests. Everything remained conditional, the fine print said, depending on available slots and landing approval.

For the Iran leg, the order looked different. Premium catering in Business Class, simple disposable utensils in Economy Class. No alcohol would be loaded on board, and the cabin would be staffed only by men. A flight arranged to suit the government receiving its passengers. The trip back into possible persecution was supposed to take place in a carefully prepared atmosphere. The destination showed itself more clearly in those requirements than in any manifest.

Diplomacy supplied the form in which the horror traveled. The records deal with diplomatic landing clearances and notes that had to be tracked through foreign ministries. A consular affairs department was involved. Landing approval for Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport was missing for a long time; someone should follow up with the ministry there, the messages said. The itinerary went through multiple versions, from a second to a third, with the subject line noting an overnight stay in Jordan. The same thing kept being missing, crew information. One participant followed up, saying he needed the pilots' information for the diplomatic note requesting landing permission in Jordan and Qatar, and that it was the only thing still missing. The Egyptian consulate in Chicago, meanwhile, demanded flight details all the way down to the aircraft registration number before issuing a travel document. A transport of human beings was waiting on a name field in a form.

By September 15, the preparations had reached deep into cooperation with Tehran. The Iranian side was given a list of around 250 people along with their passport numbers so they could be screened in advance; many of them, the records said, had already been checked by Iran. Coster offered to go to the embassy himself if necessary and to be on the ground in Doha. Because the Iranian president was visiting the United States at the same time, the delegation proposed visiting a facility on September 26 and 27, coordinated with the acting Field Office director, who saw "no issues" with it. The review produced 119 cases with valid travel documents or passports. Elsewhere, the records noted that Iran generally issued such papers only to people who wanted to return voluntarily, and there were not many of those. So the agency supplied the names, and Iran had already approved them.

The reversal contained in those lines is hard to top. Documents that Iran otherwise issued only to people willing to return were now supposed to be produced for people doing everything they could to stay. The agency placed verification of their citizenship in the hands of the very state they had fled. The persecuted had to be declared genuine by their persecutors before being sent back. It is hard to imagine a crueler testimony to the condition of asylum.

Behind the numbers were individual cases. As early as August, officials had discussed a man whose passport might not come back in time; a deportation officer from the San Antonio Field Office said he would cancel the commercial removal because the passport would probably not arrive in time for the flight, while another official noted that he already had the man on the charter manifest anyway. A removal on a commercial flight thus became a seat on a special charter. The people came from facilities such as the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Texas and the San Luis Regional Detention Center in Arizona, and they moved between lists until one finally held them.

The machinery had its own language, written in abbreviations behind which people disappeared. A supervisor asked whether a particular office was still uploading entries for the charter mission itself; at that point, the manifest contained almost entirely cases from Russia and Jordan, with only 2 Iranian cases so far. Another unit did not even have access to request seats on these special charters. A number moved from system to system while people on the ground waited for their departure.

The language of these messages is the most disturbing thing about them. Not a word of cruelty, no hatred, just subject lines and polite greetings. A person becomes a line, the return to danger becomes an item on a list that can be added or removed. When everything runs properly, no one has to decide anymore whether it is right; it is enough that it happens on schedule. This is where the horror of administration lives, requiring no intent, only a procedure.

Then came September 29, the day of departure, and everything revolved around papers and restraints. An instruction warned that all passports and travel documents had to be sent to Mesa in time so no one would have to search for them at the last minute. One message carried the subject line "Restraints - Iranians" and asked whether the matter was in order and whether it had been forwarded to the leadership of the responsible Field Office. The restraint of human beings was discussed like onboard catering. The clock had already been running: by Thursday, the message said, it would be too late to keep cases on the charter without valid documents. Because requests to change the itinerary kept coming, the mission had effectively started over each time until everything was finally settled Monday evening.

On the evening of September 29 came the accounting. "Just to confirm: this is the list of those who actually made it onto the plane," an official wrote. The answer was brief: "There will be no manifest in the Spot Report. 54 total." The circulating list kept the personal details redacted; what remained visible was gender and Iranian nationality, and every person had the same destination. Among the entries was one woman. Of 54 people, little remained beyond that redacted list. Even the agency's own recordkeeping remained remarkably thin. The Spot Report was not supposed to contain a manifest, even though 54 people ended up on board. Elsewhere, officials said 22 had been staged and were ready to depart, but who exactly they were, no one knew.

The landing report came in matter-of-fact language. SPOT Report Number 12, under the line "Egypt/Qatar/Jordan": the charter had landed at 1640 local time, 1740 Eastern Time. Between those numbers traveled a load of people who did not want to go back. The route had gone through Jordan, with an overnight stay, before the aircraft reached Doha. In Doha, the Iranians were supposed to transfer to a second charter that would take them across the Gulf to Tehran, to the place where the war had only just ended for them.

What really happened that day appears in a September 30 message that stands apart from the rest. One participant reported watching cases being removed from the manifest and placed in a cell. "I have no idea how the case/person made it onto the airplane." There had been confusion between people with valid documents who were nevertheless removed and others who did not arrive until the day of departure. In that order, one person disappeared into a cell while another ended up on a flight he was not supposed to be on.

Even the agency's own lists no longer provided a clear picture in the end. One participant noted that 2 people who were not on the manifest had never been properly added. Another wrote that it was not clear whether a particular case had ever been removed from the system. Who was ultimately on board and who was not could no longer be cleanly reconstructed from the agency's own records. We are conducting separate research into that now. In this confusion, it was decided whether a person flew to Tehran, and afterward no one seemed willing to say how.

The workday ended casually. Shortly after 3 a.m., one participant signed off for the night. He asked to be contacted only by text message and thanked everyone "for all your help and patience today," adding an image of an exhausted face and clinking glasses. That is how a day ended with people sitting on a plane bound for Tehran.

By the end of October, it became clear that the law was an obstacle in this equation that officials worked around. There was "currently no progress" on removing Iranians to third countries, a message said on October 27; officials were working with the State Department on possible routes. Where Iran could not be reached, another country was sought. Cases were moved onto a list for third-country removals so they could be considered as soon as somewhere was found. A place, any place, for a person who did not want to go anywhere and who, in this calculation, belonged nowhere.

In one of those cases, an immigration judge had previously granted an Iranian protection from removal to Iran. The agency was now searching for an alternative destination and noted that the man wanted to go to Canada, "although he admitted that he has no ties to Canada and has never been there." Beneath one of those messages, as part of an official's signature, was a Bible verse about the human heart being reflected in another person, followed by the sentence that bad company corrupts good morals. An official who handed people over to their persecutors carried a warning about morality beneath his name.

Such cases had their own heading, "3rd Country Removal - Withholding to IRAN," and there were several of them. People whom a court had explicitly spared from being returned to Iran were now handled as cases that officials wanted to push into some other country. The protection a judge had granted became a search request for an alternate destination. What began as a legal right ended as a line in a table full of backup options.

The matter did not end with the first flight. On October 30, the number of Iranians with final orders stood at "approximately 320+," recorded by the Cairo office. On November 14, a "Final Manifest" went out, addressed to 2 inboxes at the domain daftar.org, with ICE merely copied. "Please see the attached manifest for review." A list of names of people slated for deportation, sent for review to recipients outside the agency, with the agency itself only on the distribution list. Week after week, the same kind of file moved through inboxes, an updated manifest, a new total, another date. The return flight to Tehran had become a fixed item on the calendar.

For December 7, ICE planned the next mission, a long-haul flight under the subject line "EGYPT - KUWAIT (IRAN, LEBANON, RUSSIA, SYRIA)." 4 nationalities in one subject line, grouped like freight categories sharing the same cargo hold. Facilities in Arizona and Louisiana were used for staging, and the manifest came as a file named SC-FINAL IRAN MISSION MANIFEST.xlsx. Transfers and housing for the cases were to be coordinated with all involved offices, with separate contacts for bed space. The final Iranian manifest went to the government of Kuwait for approval; officials specifically asked whether the Iranian government had already reviewed it as well. Travel documents were not yet available, an official noted, but the Iranian Embassy had already agreed to issue them for the mission. The list of names was kept in a password-protected file whose password a colleague first had to request before he could see the people in it.

Nothing in these records suggests a one-time operation. The templates carry version numbers, the manifests are called "final" and yet keep being updated. Missions are assigned dates week after week. What was created here was a permanent operation, a schedule for returning people to a country that persecutes them. From September through December, this system ran through inboxes, unmoved by war or court rulings, carried forward by dates and spreadsheets.

The names on these lists belong to stories hidden inside the redacted fields. People who had fled years earlier and built lives here. Some had fought for protection in court. None of that counted for the agency once a travel document existed and a seat was available. A valid piece of paper carried more weight than any fear a person described. The destination on every line was Tehran, and not one line led back.

Read from the end backward, this chain reveals a simple, horrifying order. A government that publicly calls Iran a torture state created a smooth route for handing people over to it and had the regime itself review the list of names. The charter flew without alcohol and with an all-male cabin crew, arranged for the destination. The destination country was allowed to question detainees inside American detention facilities. And a workday that ended with people flying to Tehran closed with an image of clinking glasses.

On those planes were political activists and members of minorities who had good reason to fear persecution after arrival. Between the call sign and the war-risk insurance, between "54 total" and "22 staged," the individual person disappears into a language that records him as an item. A state that turns the removal of people into logistics no longer needs cruelty, it only needs a manifest and a morning flight. Those who were lucky stayed behind on the ground in a cell; those who were unlucky flew through the sky toward a state that had persecuted them. In this chain of emails, no monsters appear, only administrators.

We are continuing our investigation, flight by flight. We will not stop until those who made these flights possible are named, and until it is clear who knew and who decided.