Trump Administration Shares Confidential Information with Iran, Risking Lives of Asylum Seekers and Violating U.S. Law
Washington D.C. — Today, on behalf of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund (IALDF), Public Citizen Litigation Group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other members of the Trump administration to stop the illegal sharing of confidential immigration files of Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government.
In a complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., IALDF asks the court to order the U.S. government to stop sharing asylum-applicant information with the government of Iran and to provide notice to all Iranian asylum seekers whose information was unlawfully shared with the Iranian government. These asylum seekers are subject to removal to Iran, where they are at risk of persecution, torture, and death. Revelation of the bases for their asylum applications may endanger both them and their loved ones in Iran. The asylum seekers include pro-democracy protesters, members of religious minorities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community who fled to the U.S because they were in grave danger in Iran.
“The law is clear,” said Michael Kirkpatrick, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “State Department and DHS regulations prohibit ICE officials from revealing information from asylum applications to foreign governments. But that is exactly what they are doing. Disclosing this confidential information violates these asylum seekers’ confidentiality rights and puts their lives at risk. Despite the U.S.’s ongoing war with Iran, the administration seems more committed to mass deportation than protecting human lives.”
“The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund got involved because of the people we met in detention, men and women who came to the United States seeking asylum, hoping for freedom,” said Ali Rahnama, Interim Executive Director of Iranian American Legal Defense Fund. “Instead, our government betrayed them: the State Department and ICE handed their confidential asylum records to the very government they fled. This is exactly the moment IALDF was founded for, to stand in the corner of the Iranian American community when the U.S. government gets it wrong. Congress made these confidentiality protections mandatory precisely because lives depend on them, and no agency and no administration, of either party, may set them aside. IALDF is asking the court to stop these disclosures immediately, order a full accounting of every record shared, and ensure no asylum seeker’s file ever again reaches the hands of their persecutors.”
About Iranian American Legal Defense Fund:
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund mission is to empower, protect, and defend Iranian Americans by expanding opportunities, strengthening rights, and fostering inclusion. IALDF works to safeguard civil and political rights, eliminate discrimination, and create pathways for education and economic success. Through advocacy, legal support, and community engagement, IALDF ensures that every Iranian American can thrive, contribute, and shape a more just, inclusive, and prosperous future.
About Public Citizen Litigation Group:
Public Citizen Litigation Group is the litigating arm of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. For more than 50 years, the Litigation Group has worked to advance the interests of consumers, workers, and the public, and to hold the government and corporations accountable to the people. Read more at www.citizen.org/litigation.