A new federal lawsuit filed on July 7, 2026, accuses U.S. immigration agencies of illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the government of Iran — the very government those applicants say they fled. The suit, brought by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and lawyers from the Public Citizen Litigation Group, alleges that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the State Department disclosed protected asylum records during monthly meetings with the Iranian Interests Section beginning in March 2025.
According to the complaint, the information shared allegedly included identifying details, family relationships, political opinions, and the specific reasons applicants said they feared persecution by the Iranian government — precisely the categories of information that federal law shields from disclosure. The plaintiffs say the disclosures affected hundreds of Iranian detainees who were seeking asylum or other forms of deportation relief. The filing states that the in-person meetings stopped after a U.S. military strike on Iran earlier in 2026, but claims the sharing of documents continued afterward.
Confidentiality is a cornerstone of the U.S. asylum system. Under longstanding federal regulations, information contained in an asylum application generally may not be disclosed to third parties — and especially not to the government an applicant is fleeing — because such disclosure can expose the applicant and their relatives back home to retaliation, imprisonment, or worse. The lawsuit argues that the alleged conduct violated these protections and is asking the court for a preliminary injunction to immediately halt any further information sharing, as well as an order requiring the government to personally notify every individual whose data was disclosed.
ICE has firmly denied the allegations. In a statement to reporters, the agency said the claim that it shared asylum application records with the Iranian government is false. The case is at an early stage, and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
The suit is a reminder that the confidentiality safeguards built into humanitarian immigration programs carry real weight for applicants — and that questions about how sensitive case data is handled extend across the immigration system, from asylum files to the biometric and background information collected in employment- and family-based petitions. Applicants across all categories are well advised to understand what information the government collects, how it may be used, and to work with qualified counsel when assembling any petition.
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