The United States is deporting Iranian Christian converts back to their home country despite the risk of imprisonment and persecution they face for abandoning Islam, the BBC has reported.
According to the report, several Iranian asylum seekers who converted to Christianity said they fled their country in fear, only to end up in US immigration detention centres and now face forced return.
One of the deportees, identified as Majid (not his real name), said he spent a year in detention after crossing into the US from Mexico in 2024. Despite submitting evidence of his conversion and the widely documented dangers faced by Christian converts in Iran, he was put on a flight “even though an immigration judge had already granted him protection from removal five months ago”.
Another case highlighted in the report is that of the wife of a man identified as Ali, an Iranian Christian convert now living in the US.
“They deported my wife back to Iran even though she is a Christian. Now Iranian intelligence is after her and me,” Ali told the BBC.
The development comes at a time when US President Donald Trump and other right-wing American politicians have repeatedly alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
In October, Trump redesignated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern,” claiming there was an ongoing Christian genocide in the country. He also directed the US department of war to prepare for “possible action” against Islamic terrorists targeting what he described as “our cherished Christians” in Nigeria, and announced an immediate halt to all aid and assistance to Nigeria.
A White House official cited in the report said the recent deportations to Iran involved individuals who already had final removal orders or chose to leave voluntarily. The official added that the government could not disclose whether any of the deportees had applied for asylum or had their claims rejected.
