Christian converts are among the Iranians being sent home from US

One Monday in mid-October, after a yr in US immigration detention, officers arrived unannounced at Majid’s cell in Texas.

They advised him merely to “pack up” – that he was being moved – though an immigration decide had already granted him safety from elimination 5 months in the past. Shackled on the wrists, waist and ankles, he was pushed by way of the evening to a army airfield in Louisiana.

Majid – not his actual identify – had fled Iran for the US in October 2024, after repeated detentions and alleged torture, first due to his involvement within the Mahsa Amini protests, and later due to his conversion to Christianity.

When US officers pressured him to board a airplane carrying greater than 150 deportees heading to Managua, Nicaragua, he remembers being the one non–Latin American on the airplane. Hours later, the flight landed and officers handcuffed him, denied his request for asylum and directed him onto an itinerary routing him by way of Venezuela and Turkey towards Iran – a journey he understood as a pressured return.

Majid later was ready to enter hiding in Istanbul, petrified of what awaited him again in Iran. He’s one in all a number of Iranian Christian converts who spoke to the BBC – most anonymously out of concern for relations again dwelling – whose asylum claims have been rejected up to now yr. Their accounts level to inconsistencies in how US authorities assess the dangers dealing with Iranian returnees and the way delicate non secular info in asylum information is dealt with.

Their experiences additionally run distinction to different parts of US international coverage, as President Trump publicly laments the plight of Christian persecutions overseas, threatening to ship troops into Nigeria “weapons a-blazing” if its authorities “continues to permit the killing of Christians”.

A White Home official advised the BBC that every one people deported have had their asylum claims absolutely adjudicated earlier than elimination. The official stated that latest deportations to Iran concerned folks with last orders of elimination or those that had requested voluntary departure. They added that strict confidentiality guidelines stop officers from disclosing whether or not somebody utilized for asylum and was denied.

Because the US continues its crackdown on unlawful immigration, which was a central plank of Trump’s successful re-election marketing campaign, it has made unprecedented adjustments to its coverage in the direction of Iranian asylum seekers.

In late September, authorities organized a chartered flight to Iran by way of Qatar – the primary of its variety in many years, given the absence of diplomatic ties and Iran’s human-rights document. The flight represented an uncommon instance of cooperation between Iran and the US.

Dozens of Iranians have been positioned on the flight, reportedly in shackles. One deportee, Sina, later described armed guards escorting passengers on the Qatar–Tehran leg. On arrival, they have been questioned about their time within the US and their non secular actions however weren’t instantly arrested, he stated in a video, which was posted on a Farsi-language YouTube channel.

Among the many passengers was the spouse of Ali, an Iranian Christian convert now residing within the US. She has since been contacted and summoned by Iranian intelligence.

“They deported my spouse again to Iran though she is a Christian,” Ali says – the BBC has given him a pseudonym to guard the identification of him and his spouse. “Now Iranian intelligence is after her and me.”

For Ali’s spouse and others, the hazard was heightened by what their legal professionals say was a important mistake.

Lawyer Ali Herischi, who represents Ali, his spouse, and one other deportee from the September flight says a number of shoppers reported that delicate info – together with statements about non secular conversion, political exercise and the explanations they sought asylum – was not eliminated earlier than deportation.

Converts from Islam make up a big share of Iran’s estimated 800,000 Christian inhabitants, says Steve Dew-Jones of Article 18, a UK-based advocacy group that displays violations in opposition to Christians within the nation.

With formally recognised church buildings tightly restricted, home church buildings have begun to emerge throughout the nation. However practitioners proceed to face persecution, Dew-Jones says.

Changing from Islam is handled as apostasy, and converts face arrest, interrogation and jail phrases.

Arrests have elevated sixfold between 2023 and 2024, the Heart for Human Rights in Iran experiences. “Because the latest Iran–Israel clashes, we have seen the authorities use the time period ‘Zionist Christianity’ much more aggressively. By branding converts as brokers of Israel, the state frames extraordinary non secular follow as a national-security risk,” Dew-Jones provides.

Some Iranians searching for asylum overseas cite conversion as a part of their declare, whereas Iranian officers accuse them of exaggerating or fabricating conversions to strengthen their instances.

However it’s unclear what number of US asylum instances could also be exaggerated, versus actual concern of persecution.

“It is not possible to guage the sincerity of somebody’s religion – there isn’t any window into folks’s souls,” Dew-Jones says. “Sure, the system may be abused, however we additionally see many official converts whose testimonies and church data aren’t taken severely by asylum courts.”

Asylum outcomes can diverge sharply even inside a single family, Iranian asylum seekers and authorized specialists say.

In late June, ICE officers arrived at Marjan and Reza’s home in Los Angeles. In video filmed by their pastor, Marjan is seen collapsed outdoors as brokers detain her husband. Moments earlier she had known as him pleading for assist. The couple – each Christian converts from Iran who had utilized for asylum within the US – have been taken to separate detention centres. Weeks later, their instances diverged: Marjan was granted asylum in California, whereas Reza, held in New Mexico, was ordered to be eliminated to a 3rd nation.

After their June arrest, the Division of Homeland Safety stated on its X account that “throughout a focused enforcement operation in Los Angeles, Border Patrol agent apprehended two Iranian nationals unlawfully current within the US – each flagged as topics of nationwide safety curiosity.”

Pastor Ara Torosian, who filmed their arrest, disputes the Division of Homeland Safety’s declare that the couple have been unlawfully current within the US.

He says they entered legally by way of a humanitarian programme and had work authorisations. “How can or not it’s harmful for the spouse however not for the husband?” asks pastor, Ara Torosian, who himself fled Iran in 2010 after being detained for smuggling Bibles.

Majid, who managed to slide by way of the airport in Turkey, has been residing in limbo since, whereas his lawyer follows up on his case. His spouse, whose asylum case remains to be pending, now lives in Los Angeles with their 1.5-year-old daughter – a baby who has by no means met her father.

Within the US, Ali resides with a buddy from his church, and hoping his personal asylum declare will likely be extra profitable than that of his spouse, who was deported to Iran this yr.

“In the event that they grant me asylum, how can I keep right here when my spouse is in Iran? In the event that they deport me, I might go to jail the second I land.”

Unable to work legally or open a checking account. He first stayed with a distant relative “simply till my spouse’s case was resolved,” however she was by no means launched and, after practically a yr in detention, was deported. A small church later provided him short-term shelter.

“Anytime they ask me to depart, I’ve to sleep in parks,” he says.

He’s awaiting an immigration listening to however sees no good final result. His spouse has obtained one other summons from Iranian intelligence.

“In the event that they arrest her and demand I return,” he says quietly, “I am going to haven’t any selection.”