A lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. alleges the Trump administration has been giving Iran's government identifying details on Iranian nationals seeking asylum in the United States, including information about their political views and reasons for fearing return to Iran. NPR

The suit was filed by attorneys with the Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund. It is docketed as Iranian American Legal Defense Fund v. Rubio. Public Citizen

According to the complaint, the practice began in March 2025, when U.S. officials started periodically mailing or hand-delivering immigration files on Iranians in ICE custody to the Iranian government. The filings allege that applications for asylum and other deportation relief were handed over during monthly meetings between ICE and Iran's Interests Section, the diplomatic office that represents Iranian interests in Washington in the absence of formal U.S.-Iran relations. NPR

Those monthly meetings stopped after the United States struck Iran in February 2026. The lawsuit alleges the document transfers continued regardless. Plaintiffs say the disclosures covered hundreds of detained Iranians pursuing asylum claims, and included names and other identifying details, information on family relationships, stated political opinions, and the specific grounds each person cited for fearing the Iranian government. NPR

Part of the evidentiary basis for the complaint comes from a confidential source: an Iranian government official who confirmed the data-sharing arrangement to the plaintiffs' attorneys, according to the filing. Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, is representing the plaintiffs in the case. NPR

The complaint cites 8 CFR 208.6, the federal regulation governing confidentiality of asylum records. The rule bars disclosure of information contained in or pertaining to an asylum application without the applicant's consent, and it specifically requires the State Department to ensure confidentiality is maintained if any such records are transmitted to State offices abroad. eCFR Plaintiffs argue the alleged transfers to Iranian officials violate that provision on its face, since the regulation contemplates safeguarding records even when they move through U.S. government channels overseas — not handing them directly to the government an asylum seeker is fleeing.

Public Citizen Litigation Group says it intends to seek a preliminary injunction that would halt the information sharing while the case proceeds and would require the government to notify individuals whose files were allegedly disclosed. NPR No hearing date on that motion had been reported as of publication.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NPR's request for comment on the alleged information sharing with the Iranian Interests Section. Iran's Mission to the United Nations also did not respond to a request for comment. NPR

The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund has litigated related matters before. Its publications page lists a prior press release on Iranian asylum seekers facing what it described as imminent deportation to the Central African Republic, and notes a separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records on U.S. government actions affecting Iranian nationals. IALDF Attorneys said in June that an Iranian woman was among a group of people deported from the United States to the Central African Republic. AP

The core allegation puts a regulatory confidentiality requirement squarely against operational practice at ICE and the immigration courts, where asylum files routinely contain the kind of biographical and political detail that a source country could use to identify and locate dissidents or their relatives. If the confidential-source account holds up in discovery, the case turns less on whether disclosure occurred and more on the scope of it — how many files, over what period, and whether anyone at DHS or State signed off on treating the Interests Section meetings as an approved channel.

The timing detail matters for the litigation. Plaintiffs allege the file transfers survived the rupture in the ICE-Interests Section meeting schedule that followed the February 2026 U.S. strike on Iran, which — if borne out — would suggest the sharing arrangement operated on a track separate from, and more durable than, the routine liaison contacts between the two governments.

No response has been filed by the government defendants as of the NPR report on July 7, 2026, and the case is in its early stages.