July 7 (UPI) — A new lawsuit filed Tuesday by an advocacy group alleges that the Trump administration broke the law by giving the Iranian government confidential information about asylum applications for Iranians it planned to deport.

The suit was filed by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and Public Citizen Litigation Group. It alleges that the information given endangers the lives of pro-democracy protesters, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities and their families back in Iran.

The suit alleges that the administration began sharing the information with Iran in March 2025. Since then, federal government officials “periodically mailed or hand delivered immigration files of Iranians” in custody to the Iranian government.

“The law is very clear that information within an asylum application or other applications for similar forms of protection cannot be shared, particularly with the government that the individual is fleeing,” said Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney with Public Citizen, told NPR. Public Citizen Litigation Group is representing the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund in the suit.

“Disclosing their confidential information to the Iranian government violates federal regulations requiring confidentiality, endangers their family members and acquaintances who may still be residing in Iran, and puts those who are subject to removal to Iran at risk of persecution, torture and death following their arrival in Iran,” the PCLG said in a statement.

The suit also said the applications for deportation relief and asylum applications were given during monthly meetings between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Iranian Interests Section, which handles consular duties in the United States and is based in the Pakistani Embassy. According to the complaint, the meetings ended at the start of the war with Iran in February, but the document sharing continued.

ICE, in a statement, said the allegations are not true.

“ICE is committed to ensuring that illegal aliens are informed of their right to communicate with their consular representatives,” a Department of Homeland Security representative said in a statement. “Consistent with established protocols, ICE provides illegal aliens the opportunity to contact their consular post and facilitates consular access to detained individuals, in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and agency policy.”

Kirkpatrick said the organization will ask for a preliminary injunction to freeze the information sharing and to notify those whose information has been shared.

The disclosures allegedly include identifying data, family relationships, political opinions and why they feared the Iranian government.

“The detainees contributed this information to their asylum application files in reliance on the confidentiality protections provided by federal regulations, with the understanding that the information would not be shared with the Iranian Government,” the lawsuit alleges. It also says that at times detainees met with Iranian Interests Section officials without their consent.

Some information is often shared between governments, but only details about the person’s return, such as travel arrangements and passport info, NPR reported.

“What’s different here, though, is they are revealing information from the asylum applications, and that is a very specific category of information that is kept confidential,” Kirkpatrick said. “They shouldn’t even reveal information from which one could infer that somebody had sought asylum.”

Under the second Trump administration, the United States has sent three deportation flights and more than 100 people to Iran, Kirkpatrick said. Others have been deported to other countries such as Panama and the Central African Republic.