Residents continue their daily routines across business centers, shopping districts, and city streets despite escalating tensions between Iran and the United States on October 12, 2026 in Tehran, Iran.[Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
The US government moved to deport 11 Iranian nationals to Iran via Pakistan in an overnight operation that an advocacy organization claims violates a binding federal court order, according to an emergency court motion filed Sunday, Anadolu reports.
“Plaintiff learned on the evening of Saturday, November 7, 2026… that ICE will remove eleven Iranian nationals—ten men and one woman—from the United States at approximately 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 8, 2026, on a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan, with a refueling stop in Georgia (the country) and onward transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tuesday, November 10,” the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said in the emergency filing submitted to a US federal court.
The legal group argued that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mobilized the 11 detainees late Saturday from the Florence Service Processing Center and the Eloy Detention Center, transferring them to Mesa, Arizona, for an early morning flight out of Phoenix–Mesa Gateway Airport. It remains unconfirmed whether the charter flight departed as scheduled.
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Detainees were reportedly issued 15-day Pakistani transit visas ahead of their planned transfer to Iran.
The motion further revealed direct, on-the-ground coordination inside an Arizona detention facility, where an Iranian government official met Friday with seven of the detained men to disclose the itinerary and show them an official flight manifest listing all 11 deportees.
According to the legal filing, the overnight flight breached an order issued on Oct. 15 by US District Judge Ana C. Reyes, which mandates that the government provide “five business days’ written advance notice” prior to removing any Iranian national to Iran or a coordinating third country. The group noted that the administration filed an ex parte notice on Tuesday, meaning the Sunday departure occurred after only three business days.
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