(RNS) — The Trump administration’s deportation of more than a hundred Iranians held in ICE custody on a flight that touched down in Tehran on Sept. 29 includes Christian converts and other religious minorities who may face harsh penalties for their religious beliefs upon return to the Islamic Republic, advocates warned.
“Among those deported were four women and a 72-year-old man who had lived in the United States for nearly 50 years,” said Pastor Ara Torosian in a Facebook post after the flight, in an account attributed to an anonymous witness on the flight. The Iranian-born evangelical Christian pastor has been protesting the detainment of several of his congregants for months. “The group included an estimated 15 Iranian Christian converts, along with political and ethnic asylum seekers,” Torosian wrote.
In July, Torosian held a hunger strike outside the White House, advocating for the rights of an estimated 200 Iranian Christians held in ICE custody.
The account Torosian posted on Facebook was corroborated in part by Ali Herischi, an immigration lawyer in Maryland, who explained that two of his clients were on the flight, including a convert to Christianity whose name he declined to reveal to protect her safety in Iran. The Christian woman’s husband has been released, Herischi said, splitting the family. The New York Times has also reported that Iranian officials were told of the flight’s impending arrival, though the number of passengers differed.
Though they account for less than 1% of the country’s population, Christians represent Iran’s largest religious minority. According to a January report by Open Doors, a watchdog organization that tracks persecution of Christian’s worldwide, Iran ranked in the top 10 on their 2025 watchlist, just ahead of Afghanistan and not far behind North Korea and Yemen.
FILE – Pastor Ara Torosian draws attention to detained Iranian Christians while on a hunger strike in front of the White House, July 23, 2025, in Washington. (Photo by David Ian Klein)
While some protection is afforded to churches with a longstanding history in Iran, such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean and Aramean churches, Protestant and evangelical Christian groups have no such protections. Christian worship in Farsi (as opposed to Armenian or Syriac Aramaic) is outlawed, and proselytizing and conversion are punishable by fines, corporal punishment, jail time or, potentially, the death penalty under Iranian law.
“The unrecognized converts from Islam to Christianity bear the brunt of religious freedom violations, carried out by the government in particular and to a lesser extent by society and the converts’ families,” noted Open Doors’ report. “The government sees these Iranian Christians as an attempt by Western countries to undermine Islam and the Islamic regime of Iran. Both leaders and ordinary members of Christian convert groups have been arrested, been prosecuted and received long prison sentences for ‘crimes against national security.’”
In recent years, there has been an increase of Iranian nationals entering the U.S. through the southern border, with many appealing for asylum status. Under the Biden administration, asylum seekers used a cellphone app, CBP One, to streamline their claims, but they have been systematically cancelled or ignored under the Trump administration.
Torosian’s Facebook post noted that several of the deportees were in the final stages of immigration court and had already received pre-approval before their deportation.
Torosian’s report added that many of those deported, who had been held in Louisiana, were told that they were being moved to another detention facility in the U.S. before being herded onto a plane that made its way to Puerto Rico, Qatar and finally Iran. The lawyer said he has been unable to contact his client since her deportation.
According to The Associated Press, the flight was the result of a rare deal struck between the Trump administration and the Islamic Republic, even as the U.S. continues to push sanctions on Iran and bombed its nuclear facilities just months ago.
“There was no (pre-existing) deal between Iran and the U.S. to accept deportees from the U.S., and we didn’t know this deal existed,” Herischi told Religion News Service. “Unfortunately, prior to this agreement, neither Iran nor the U.S. informed the public about it.”
Herischi said the news of the flight has raised anxiety among Iranians and Iranian Americans in the U.S. “We are devastated, because this is only going to increase. It’s opened the door for a huge number of deportation from the Iranian community, for those who are here for years.”
Torosian’s source maintained in his Facebook report that the converts faced harsh treatment upon arrival in Iran.
“When the plane landed in Tehran, Iranian state media was already waiting. Refugees were lined up, searched, and their belongings seized. Particularly alarming was the targeting of 10-15 Christian converts, who were forced to display their Bibles and crosses on camera while being interrogated,” read the Facebook report.
“They were then separated into individual rooms where they were coerced into making video confessions, statements discrediting their conversions, claiming they were misled by pastors, and admitting they had sought Christianity merely to gain asylum. These staged confessions are expected to be broadcast soon by Iranian state television as part of propaganda against both Christianity and the United States,” read the Facebook post.
FILE – Signs that pastor Ara Torosian displays in front of the White House, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Washington. (Photo by David Ian Klein)
But they may face more dangers, the lawyer said, due to how the U.S. handles deportations. Deportees’ possessions, said Herischi, are normally in the custody of the U.S. government and are sent ahead of the deportees to their destination. In this case, that means all their court documents, including case files detailing their asylum claims, would have been handed over directly to the Iranian government.
“So in those packages, there may be a copy of their files, all sorts of documents that they had to support their immigration case. So that’s very dangerous, and there may also be Bibles,” Herischi said. “Based on how much information [Iran] has about their immigration process and what they have been provided, they can charge them with allegations of working with a foreign government, working against national security and apostasy claims, which can be up to execution — capital punishment.”
The deportations come just months after Republican lawmakers passed a joint resolution condemning the treatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries such as Iran.
“This is going to really normalize the human rights situation in Iran, and basically ignores the reality of what’s going on in Iran and those who are applying for asylum — especially for political and religious crimes,” Herischi said.
Torosian’s report accused the administration of delivering “elderly residents, women, and recognized asylum seekers into the hands of a regime known for religious persecution and political imprisonment,” calling the action “not only inhumane but also a grave betrayal of America’s longstanding commitment to protect the persecuted.
“The world must pay attention. These refugees are not numbers. They are fathers, mothers, believers, and survivors. Their forced return to Iran places them at extreme risk of imprisonment, torture, and even death. Silence in the face of this injustice is complicity,” the anonymous source said.