120 US-deported Iranians to arrive home in coming days: Ministry
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that 120 nationals being deported from the United States under President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown will arrive home this week.
Foreign Ministry’s consular affairs official Hossein Noushabadi said necessary arrangements for their return have been made and consular services have been provided to them.
“The US immigration service has decided to deport around 400 Iranians currently in the United States, most of them after entering illegally."
“Based on our information, their consent to return to the country has been obtained.”
He said that the Iranian migrants have legally left the country but how they went to the United States is another matter, Noushabadi said, adding that some of them have illegally entered the US through the Mexican border.
Noushabadi noted that some of the Iranians who have been deported had legal residency in the US.
The New York Times reported that some 100 Iranians who had sought refuge in the United States were being deported to their homeland under an agreement between Washington and Tehran.
It said the rare deal between the longtime foes was the fruit of several months of negotiations.
The newspaper said an aircraft chartered by the US authorities had left the southern state of Louisiana on Monday evening and was expected to land in Tehran later Tuesday after a stopover in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.
Earlier this year, the United States already deported a number of Iranians, many of them Christians, to the Central American countries of Costa Rica and Panama.