The Trump administration is deporting Iranian asylum-seekers, including Christians, to Iran under a new agreement — even though administration officials have slammed the country as a restrictive regime that sponsors terror attacks, persecutes religious minorities and executes prisoners who are forced to confess to crimes under torture.
“I’ve never seen something like this,” Ara Torosian, an Iranian refugee and pastor of a Christian church in California, told NOTUS in a phone call Wednesday. “I’ve never seen even the immigration law in America treat asylum-seekers like this. I’ve never seen it in the last 15 years. It’s so sad.”
Torosian said he has spoken with the loved ones of some of the Iranians deported at the end of September, as well as people who witnessed the flight’s arrival. He estimated between 10 and 15 of the people onboard were Christians, a group particularly at risk of oppression in Iran.