U.S. to deport hundreds of Iranians who were held on immigration charges, Tehran says

The United States was set to deport hundreds of Iranian nationals, a senior official in Tehran said Tuesday, as the Trump administration takes new steps in its immigration crackdown.U.S.

The United States was set to deport hundreds of Iranian nationals, a senior official in Tehran said Tuesday, as the Trump administration takes new steps in its immigration crackdown.

U.S. authorities had “planned to deport about 400 Iranians currently living in the United States, most of whom entered illegally,” the Iranian foreign ministry’s director general for parliamentary affairs, Hossein Noushabadi, told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.

“Out of this number 120 have been selected for deportation and will return to Iran within the next one or two days,” he added, attributing the deportation to the U.S.’ “new anti-immigration policy.”

The identities of the Iranians and their reasons for attempting to immigrate to the U.S. were not immediately clear. The U.S. has not acknowledged any deal and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “the Trump Administration is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to carry out the largest mass deportation operation of illegal aliens in history, using all the tools at our disposal.”