Tehran, Iran — Iran said Tuesday that 120 Iranians detained in the United States for illegally entering the country will be returned to Iran in the coming days.
As many as 400 Iranians would be returning to Iran as part of an agreement with the U.S., Iranian state television said, citing Hossein Noushabadi, director-general for parliamentary affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He said the majority of those people had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.
The Trump administration has not acknowledged striking any deportation deal with Iran, but two U.S. officials told CBS News on Tuesday that a flight carrying fewer than 200 Iranian deportees had been scheduled to depart from the United States on Monday night.
The deportations, which would represent an atypical level of cooperation between Washington and Tehran, came after months of talks, according to the New York Times, which first reported the move.
Noushabadi said the first planeload of Iranians would arrive in one or two days after stopping over in Qatar on the way. Qatari authorities have not acknowledged that plan.
In the lead up to and after Iran’s 1979 revolution, a large number of Iranians fled to the United States. In the decades since, the U.S. had been sympathetic toward those seeking asylum or residency after fleeing Iran due to religious, sexual or political persecution.
The U.S. has deported Iranians previously, as recently as February, when some were sent to Panama.
Iran has criticized Washington for hosting Iranian dissidents and others in the past.
It’s unclear exactly what has changed now in American policy.
Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/Getty 
President Trump, since reentering the White House, has cracked down on those living in the U.S. illegally. He did mention Iran Monday in the context of his push for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire to end the war in Gaza, suggesting there was hope of drawing the Islamic republic into a broadened agreement between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors.
Speaking alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump suggested a possible expansion of the Abraham Accords, a 2020 pact he helped to broker that led to diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf states, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Trump said a future expansion could include Iran, whose Islamic regime has been an avowed opponent of Israel, supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and other anti-Israeli factions.
Noushabadi said American authorities made the decision to send the Iranian nationals back to Iran unilaterally, without consultations with Tehran, according to Iran’s state television network.
Nicole Sganga and
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
contributed to this report.
