A United States deportation flight carrying Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly cancelled on Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke to some of the detainees due to be removed.

At least eight Iranians had been loaded onto a plane in Mesa, Arizona, for a flight headed first to Georgia, then on to Pakistan, said Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the detainees. The flight was cancelled without explanation, he said.

Eleven people were due to be removed

An emergency court filing said the authorities planned to remove 11 Iranian nationals, ten men and one woman, at about 4am on Sunday 8 November on a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan, with a refuelling stop in Georgia and an onward transfer to Iran on Tuesday 10 November.

The filing, submitted to a federal court in Washington DC, described the planned removal as an apparent breach of a court order made on 15 October. Under that order, US District Judge Ana C. Reyes required the government to give the court 24 hours' notice of any finalised plan to deport Iranians to Iran or to another country, and five business days' written notice before any such removal took place.

The legal group argued that the administration may have broken the judge's directive. Later on Sunday, the government filed court documents in the case, but they were sealed and not accessible to the public.

A lawsuit over removals during wartime

Court documents unsealed days earlier showed that the Trump administration said as recently as mid-October that it had plans to deport the Iranians to Iran, even as the war there continues, through an unnamed third country. The lawsuit, filed in July, alleges that the US government illegally shared confidential information about Iranians seeking asylum with Iranian officials.

There were three deportation flights to Iran between September 2025 and January 2026, with more than 100 Iranian nationals deported, according to the Associated Press. The legal group has called for the removal flights to stop, saying they would reportedly mark the first deportation of Iranians to Iran since the US-Iran war began in February.

In the past week, about a dozen Iranian nationals in immigration detention said they had been told they were scheduled for a deportation flight to Pakistan and then to Iran, according to several attorneys who said they had confirmed those plans with the Department of Homeland Security.

Officials declined to comment

In response to questions on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger lists, destinations or individual case details, and would not confirm future removal operations.

The department added in a statement: "As promised, the Trump Administration is employing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history."

According to Rahnama, the eight detainees who boarded the flight on Sunday had been visited by a senior official from the Iranian Interests Section, the office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs for Iran. They were told the Iranian government would transport them from Pakistan to Iran.

The legal group also says at least a dozen Iranian detainees have been contacted by Iranian officials who had knowledge of sensitive information in their asylum claims.

Fears for those sent back

The group's executive director, Yasmin Chubin, said it was difficult to understand why the United States would forcibly deport Iranians, including asylum seekers, to Iran while military hostilities were continuing. She said the consequences of removal "could be irreversible and individuals may face persecution, torture, or death".

At least one person who had been part of the cancelled flight volunteered to return to Iran after nearly two years in detention, Rahnama said, out of desperation to leave what he described as inhumane imprisonment. It is not clear how many of the others may also have volunteered to leave.