On October 8, 2025, the tense relationship between Iran and the United States reached yet another dramatic inflection point, as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi publicly denied reports of secret talks with Washington and condemned threats from President Donald Trump of renewed military action. The denial came in response to a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Jarida, which had claimed that direct contacts between Tehran and the U.S. were expected to resume, possibly paving the way for new nuclear negotiations. Araghchi, speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, declared unequivocally, “It is incorrect. We deny it. There has been no contact.” According to Al-Jarida, unnamed Iranian sources had suggested that talks—suspended after the U.S. joined Israel’s war against Iran in June—were regaining momentum, but Araghchi’s statement left little doubt about the official Iranian stance.
The backdrop to these diplomatic denials is a region still reeling from the violence of the summer. On June 22, at the height of a 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the Trump administration dramatically escalated the conflict by dropping 14 massive bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. The strikes marked a significant and dangerous turn in U.S. involvement, as reported by Prism. The fallout from these attacks extended far beyond the Middle East, triggering a wave of immigration enforcement actions back in the United States that disproportionately targeted Iranians.
Between January 20 and July 29, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 351 Iranian immigrants, with a staggering 183 of those arrests taking place in the week following the June 22 bombing campaign. Prism found that 60% of those detained during that week had no criminal convictions or pending charges. The enforcement sweep spanned 14 states, with California and New York seeing the highest numbers, followed by Texas and Florida. Etan Mabourakh, organizing manager with the National Iranian American Council, described the situation as “an urgent crisis of heightened and racially motivated targeting for deportation.” In his words: “These arrests were driven by nationality, not evidence. Immigration enforcement is absolutely being misused as a political tool and is an example of how war abroad heightens repression at home.”
As the war between Israel and Iran wound down, a rare agreement between the U.S. and Iran was announced on September 30, 2025. Under the deal, Iran agreed to accept 400 of its nationals whom the Trump administration sought to deport. The very next day, a U.S. government-chartered flight carrying 120 Iranian deportees landed in Tehran. Many of those targeted for removal were dissidents or religious minorities, including Baha’is and Christian converts, who faced potential persecution upon return. The Prism investigation highlighted that, historically, Iran had refused to cooperate with U.S. deportation requests—one of the justifications for President Trump’s travel ban on Iran, instituted in June. The new agreement marked a significant, if uneasy, shift in that dynamic.
For those caught up in the dragnet, the consequences were immediate and deeply personal. Arpineh Masihi, a 39-year-old mother of four and a Christian convert, told the BBC from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, “I will support him until the day I die. He’s making America great again.” Yet, she also admitted she could not return to Iran for fear of religious persecution. Immigration attorney Parastoo Zahedi, representing another detainee, voiced concern over the administration’s willingness to deport Iranians to third countries—such as Pakistan, Turkey, or Qatar—where they might be at risk of being sent straight back to Iran. “If he’s deported to a third country as designated for my client, those countries have policies and relations in place with Iran—they’re going to refoul him straight back to Iran,” she explained to Prism.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration insisted its actions were not racially motivated. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on September 25, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted, “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.” Yet, the same week, DHS issued a press release specifically highlighting the detention of 11 Iranian immigrants, grouping them solely by nationality. A relative of one detainee told Prism that an immigration agent admitted they had been instructed to target Iranians following the Israel-Iran war.
The chilling effect of these enforcement actions has rippled through the Iranian-American community. Immigration attorney Mahsa Khanbabai, a board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, described the atmosphere as one of fear and uncertainty. “I think the government is basically achieving their goal, spreading chaos and fear in the community,” she said. “Grab a hundred Iranians, and it’s going to cause a ripple effect. People will leave on their own, they won’t apply for visas, they won’t try to come here.” Zahedi echoed this sentiment, recounting how one of her clients, exhausted by the climate of intimidation, chose to leave the U.S. for Turkey rather than risk further uncertainty. “A lot of people are just leaving. They’re just done with it,” she said.
The travel ban on Iranians entering the U.S., which had previously exempted students, now applies without exception. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, dean at Missouri University of Science and Technology, lamented the policy’s impact: “Alas, a wholesale travel ban disproportionately hurts Iranians who are not fond of their own government and deprives America of the talent that smart students and entrepreneurial migrants can contribute.” Despite his hardline stance, President Trump has occasionally praised the contributions of Iranian Americans, writing in a 2017 message, “For many years, I have greatly enjoyed wonderful friendships with Iranian Americans, one of the most successful immigrant groups in our country’s contemporary history.”
While the U.S. tightened its immigration policies, diplomatic maneuvering continued, albeit with little progress. Iranian lawmakers, angered by France, Germany, and the UK referring their nuclear dispute with Iran to the UN Security Council in September, called for lowering diplomatic ties with the so-called E3, accusing them of seeking U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Araghchi, meanwhile, took to social media to refute President Trump’s repeated claims that Iran was building nuclear weapons. “If POTUS (President of the United States) was to glance at the minutes of those talks—recorded by our interlocutor—he would see just how close we were to celebrating a new and historic Iran nuclear deal,” he wrote, referencing talks with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff. Araghchi made clear that “zero nuclear weapons equals agreement; zero enrichment equals no agreement.” He drew a pointed comparison to the run-up to the Iraq war, stating, “There was never any intelligence proving that Iraq concealed weapons of mass destruction. What followed were unimaginable destructions, thousands of American casualties, and seven trillion dollars wasted from U.S. taxpayers’ money.”
He further accused Israel of fabricating threats about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and insisted that Americans were weary of “fighting Israel’s endless wars.” Emphasizing Iran’s resilience, Araghchi declared, “Iran is a great nation, the heir to a great ancient civilization. Buildings and machinery may be destroyed, but our willpower will never be shaken. Insisting on such miscalculations will solve nothing. There is no solution other than reaching a negotiated one.”
In the end, the events of 2025 have left Iranian Americans caught between two governments, both wielding policy as a weapon. The war abroad has unmistakably heightened the pressure at home, and the path forward—diplomatic, humanitarian, or otherwise—remains as uncertain as ever.