Chilling parallels between Trump’s mass deportation and Iran’s expulsion of Afghans

Monkey see, monkey do creates a global scourge as the Trump administration and Iran’s mullahs both terrorize dispossessed people, refugees, and other humans facing grim circumstances.

In the scorching heat of the Texas desert, a man who has called America home for 40 years sits in a privately run detention center, wondering if he will be deported to Australia, a country he has never visited.

Thousands of miles away, in the dust-choked border town of Islam Qala, Afghan families forced out of Iran scramble for bags of cucumbers handed out by aid workers, their lives packed into suitcases after decades of labor in a country that now considers them disposable.

These are not isolated tragedies but part of a global pattern where regimes wield immigration policy as a weapon of political control, targeting the vulnerable with bureaucratic cruelty and nationalist fervor.

The similarities between the Trump administration’s mass deportation apparatus and Iran’s expulsion of more than a million Afghans reveal a shared playbook for the persecution of unwanted minorities.

In New Orleans, 64-year-old Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian was handcuffed in her garden after living in the United States for 47 years. She arrived in 1978 on a student visa, built a life, married a U.S. citizen, and raised a daughter, all while checking in regularly with immigration officials as required.

Her arrest came despite her compliance, mirroring the experience of Afghans in Iran who, after decades of labor and community contribution, are now rounded up in raids and dumped at border crossings.

“She’s retirement age. She’s not a threat. Who picks up a grandmother?” asked her husband, Russell Milne, a question that echoes across both continents.

Arpineh Masihi, a 39-year-old mother of four U.S. citizen children, was detained by ICE while having breakfast with her family in Diamond Bar, California.

A devout Trump supporter, she believed his policies would only target criminals, yet she was taken despite having rebuilt her life after a past mistake.

Similarly, Afghan families in Iran describe being seized at checkpoints or in workplace raids, separated from children and spouses with no warning.

The heartbreaking irony of Masihi’s faith in a leader who now imprisons her underscores the arbitrary nature of these actions, where ideology trumps humanity.

Both regimes employ similar tactics to seize and detain immigrants.

In Iran, security forces conduct raids on neighborhoods and set up checkpoints in major cities to target Afghans, often without evidence or due process.

Similarly, the Trump administration unleashed ICE to conduct warrantless arrests, including in sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals, while expanding the use of 287(g) agreements to deputize local law enforcement as immigration officers.

The randomness of enforcement is evident in cases such as Reza Zavvar, arrested while walking his dog in Maryland over a marijuana conviction from the 1990s, and Afghan cattle herders in Iran accused of spying for Israel without evidence.

Both regimes have also circumvented diplomatic hurdles by deporting people to countries with which they have no connection.

Iran has forced Afghans into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where they face poverty and persecution, while the Trump administration deported Iranians, Venezuelans and others to countries such as Costa Rica, Panama, and even Australia or Rwanda.

Zavvar, an Iranian man living in the U.S. since 1985, was threatened with deportation to Australia or Romania despite having no ties to either nation.

Immigration lawyers have described this practice as inhumane and illegal, reducing human beings to pawns in a global game of political expediency.

Both governments have used immigrants as scapegoats to distract from domestic failures.

Iranian state media, without evidence, has claimed Afghans are recruited by Israel and the United States to conduct terrorist attacks, justifying their expulsion amid economic crisis.

Similarly, the Trump administration labeled immigrants as terrorists or “criminal illegal aliens” to justify raids and deportations.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin claimed Iranians arrested in raids were “suspected terrorists” but provided no evidence, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio explicitly said deportees should be sent “further away the better, so they can’t come back.”

Both regimes have also used military conflicts to intensify crackdowns. Iran accelerated its expulsion of Afghans following its conflict with Israel, while the Trump administration increased arrests of Iranians after U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

This opportunistic targeting creates a veneer of national security justification for what is essentially ethnic persecution.

“The Trump administration claimed they were going after criminals, yet the vast majority of people, including the Iranians, don’t have any serious criminal offenses or any at all,” said one Iranian American lawyer.

Legal protections have also been dismantled. Iran has limited where Afghans can live and work, denying them access to banks, schools, and hospitals, while the Trump administration revoked temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands, expanded expedited removal without court hearings, and invoked the Alien Enemies Act to bypass due process.

The arbitrary revocation of status is exemplified by the case of 350,000 Venezuelans who lost protection under Trump, the largest single action stripping immigration status in modern U.S. history.

Human rights groups accuse both regimes of violating international law by denying asylum rights and deporting people to dangerous conditions.

Iran’s deportations have overwhelmed Afghanistan, where half the population relies on humanitarian aid, while Trump’s third-country deportations left migrants stranded in countries such as Panama and El Salvador without resources or legal pathways.

The hypocrisy of “safe third countries” is stark: the U.S. has deported Iranians to Panama, where they were held in detention centers near the Darién jungle, while Iran forces Afghans into a Taliban-controlled state where women are banned from education and work.

Both Iran and the United States under Trump have pressured weaker countries into accepting deportees.

Iran has exploited Afghanistan’s economic dependence to force repatriations, while the Trump administration used threats of tariffs and economic coercion to compel countries such as Costa Rica, Panama, and Rwanda to accept deportees.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, reportedly received millions in compensation for imprisoning Venezuelan migrants in his maximum-security prison, a transaction that mirrors the geopolitical bullying of Iran over Afghanistan.

Both regimes rely on public fear to justify their actions.

In Iran, Afghans are accused of terrorism to rationalize their removal, while in the U.S., Trump officials such as Rubio described deportees as “despicable human beings” to justify inhumane policies.

This dehumanizing rhetoric permeates enforcement: ICE officers told Masihi they would “catch her eventually” even if she didn’t comply, echoing the threats Afghans face from Iranian security forces.

The parallels between Trump’s America and Iran under the mullahs are not merely coincidental but reflect a global resurgence of authoritarianism that uses immigration policy to define who belongs and who does not.

From the detention centers of California to the border facilities of Islam Qala, the same story unfolds: people who built lives, raised families, and contributed to their communities are being torn from their homes because they were born on the wrong side of a line.

The ruthless arithmetic of power is on display in both cases, where human beings are reduced to political liabilities or bargaining chips.

As one Afghan deported from Iran asked, “Where do we even go?”

That is a question that now reverberates in American suburbs and courtrooms, a testament to the fact that the machinery of exclusion speaks a universal language, one of fear and ruthlessness, that transcends borders and regimes.

This report is based on firsthand accounts from affected immigrants, government statements, and analysis from human rights organizations. The names of some individuals have been changed for their protection.