Secret talks on Iran deportations revealed in court filings
Documents unsealed Thursday show the Trump administration negotiated with Tehran on deporting Iranians to a third country while the war continued.
By Sarah Reynolds ·
Court documents unsealed Thursday reveal that the Trump administration conducted secret negotiations with Iran regarding the deportation of Iranian nationals. The talks occurred while the war in the region was actively underway. According to the filings, the administration maintained plans to deport these individuals through an unnamed third country as recently as mid-October.
The timing of these discussions has raised questions about the executive branch's strategy. The judge presiding over the case ordered the government to provide 24-hour notice to the court if it finalizes plans to deport Iranians to Iran or another country. The government must also send five days of written notice before carrying out any such deportation.
The revelation comes as President Donald Trump assesses his party's performance in the recent midterm elections. Democrats won a decisive victory, a wave driven partly by voter dissatisfaction with the eight-month-old conflict with Iran. In his first comments after the election, Trump largely aligned with Vice President JD Vance, who had described the war as a disaster for Republicans.
Trump has threatened to resume full-scale bombardment of Iran if Tehran does not reach a settlement on his terms. The secret deportation talks suggest a more complex diplomatic effort was underway during this period of public pressure.
Separately, Wall Street reacted sharply to news that artificial intelligence stocks are developing at nearly twice the pace of a year ago. An independent research group, Model Evaluation and Threat Research, released an analysis showing this acceleration despite calls from Anthropic's CEO to slow down. The S&P 500 fell 3.5% on Thursday, marking its worst drop since the tariff announcements in April 2025.
In Europe, mass protests in France drew an estimated 600,000 to 1.6 million participants demanding higher wages and supporting student strikes. In Paraguay, President Santiago Peña was impeached unanimously by the lower house minutes after announcing his resignation following the collapse of a major digital bank. Meanwhile, more than a dozen flights in Europe received bomb threats that authorities are calling malicious hoaxes.
