Iranian Christians feared death in Iran. Then the US deported them to Panama.

USA Today

20-02-2025

Iranian Christians feared death in Iran. Then the US deported them to Panama.
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Critics question the legality of undocumented migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay
For the first time around ten undocumented migrants arrived at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base.
The U.S. government has begun flying migrants to Panama and Costa Rica as part of a strategy to increase deportations.
Immigrant advocates say the flights violate migrants' rights and could put asylum-seekers in danger.
The young woman in the video sounds desperate.
Sitting on a bed in a hotel room surrounded by eight other people, including several children, she explains to the camera that they're all Iranian Christians who journeyed to the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana to seek asylum – then were shackled and flown six hours in a military plane to Panama.
'All of our cases are legitimate,' she says, her eyes burrowing with worry. 'I'm a protester in Iran with a record. I can't go back.'
The woman – later identified as 27-year-old Artemis Ghasemzadeh – was part of a group of Iranian Christians, as well as migrants from Afghanistan, Nepal, China and other countries, who were recently flown from the U.S. to Panama and Costa Rica.
The flights are part of President Donald Trump and his administration's strategy of outsourcing some of its most challenging deportations and removing as many people as possible who are in the U.S. without permission. On Thursday, the administration took another step designating eight gangs from Latin America as "foreign terrorist organizations," increasing the reach of U.S. law enforcement as they race to deport record number of migrants and deliver on one of Trump's biggest campaign promises.
But these deportation flights trample migrant's rights and could return some asylum-seekers to dangerous situations, immigrant advocates and attorneys say.
'This is unprecedented,' Hillary Walsh, an immigration attorney in Phoenix whose office has been in touch with the Iranians in Panama, said of the new flights. 'It's not making asylum law hard – it's eliminating asylum law.'
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the deportations, did not respond to a request for comment.
'Cries and horrifying noises'
Ghasemzadeh and the other Iranians traveled through several countries, including Mexico, to reach the U.S.-Mexico border at Tijuana, Walsh said. After they crossed the border, U.S. officials took their passports and other documents and gave them immigration detention wristbands. They were never given 'credible fear' interviews, Walsh said, often the first step to determining whether migrants could apply for asylum.
The migrants were told detention centers there were full and they were transporting them to Texas, Walsh said. Instead, they were shackled, boarded onto a C-17 military cargo plane and flown to Panama.
'They tied our hands and feet,' Ghasemzadeh says in the video, which, as of Wednesday, had been shared more than 160,000 times. 'Women and children were getting sick, fainting … You could hear cries and horrifying noises from the plane.'
As of 2019, there were about 385,000 Iranian immigrants living in the United States, or less than 1 percent of the nearly 45 million immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That year, there were approximately 7,000 unauthorized Iranian immigrants, or less than 0.1% of the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country.
Iranian Christians present a particularly compelling asylum case, according to immigrant advocates, since the Iranian government prohibits converting from Islam to any religion. Sharia, or Islamic religious law, as interpreted by the government considers conversion from Islam apostasy, a crime punishable by death, according to the U.S. State Department.
The vast majority of Iranians who arrive in the U.S. do so through a third country, often Turkey, and with the proper visas, said Peyman Malaz, chief operating officer of the PARS Equality Center, an L.A.-based advocacy group that helps mostly Persian-speaking migrants.
More Iranians arrive at the border
Over the past four or five months, however, his center has seen an uptick in Iranians arriving at the border who complain that their wait times in third countries are stretching past five or six years, he said. Those who arrive at the border are often the most persecuted and desperate, such as Iranian Christians, he said.
Malaz said he was dismayed to hear of the Iranian Christians who were flown to Panama without any process for asylum.
'I was shocked,' he said. 'The United States has always been a beacon of hope for refugees. These people are running away from an autocratic government.'
The Iranian Christians were part of a flight of 119 people who arrived in Panama aboard the C-17 on February 12, the first of three flights to arrive in the country the past week, said Tom Cartwright, who tracks deportation flights using publicly available flight records for the advocacy group Witness at the Border. Another flight filled with migrants later landed in Costa Rica.
More: 'Woman, life, liberty': Iranians on why they'll risk beatings and death for change
The last time the U.S. government transported migrants to a third country that was not their country of origin was when immigration officials flew asylum-seekers from Guatemala, Honduras and other countries to southern Mexico under the Biden administration, Cartwright said. Those flights ended in late 2022.
The use of military cargo flights is baffling, he said, since U.S. officials could transport migrants on commercial charter flights for a fraction of the cost. Also, some of the nationalities on the flights, such as Nepal and India, the U.S. could deport directly to their countries of origin rather than pay to take them through a third country, Cartwright said.
More: OnPolitics: Why Iranians are fighting for their freedom
'From a financial sense, it makes no sense at all. Zero,' he said.
'They'll definitely be harmed'
Cartwright said he and other immigrant advocates suspect Trump is using an executive order he signed last month to invoke a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the president the authority to 'suspend the entry' of certain noncitizens, whose entry would be 'detrimental to the interests of the United States.'
Earlier this month, immigrant rights groups sued the Trump administration in federal court, claiming the executive order unlawfully shut down asylum at the border.
'This is an unprecedented power grab that will put countless lives in danger,' Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement accompanying the filing. 'No president has the authority to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger.'
On Tuesday, Ghasemzadeh and the other Iranians were transferred from their hotel in Panama City to a remote migrant center at the edge of the jungle, according to Walsh's office. It's unclear what rights and procedures are being afforded to them.
Attorneys are trying to help her and others, Walsh said. But at such a distance and with communication a challenge, it's becoming increasingly difficult, Walsh said.
Her top concern: That Ghasemzadeh and the others could be returned to Iran.
'They'll definitely be harmed when they go back,' Walsh said. 'There's no question in my mind.'
Follow Rick Jervis on X: @MrRJervis.