Trump Deporting Gay Men to Iran Is a Death Sentence
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Tim Miller gives his take on one of the most morally disgraceful moments of the Trump presidency. Trump told protesters in Iran that America had their back. He encouraged them to stay in the streets and keep fighting a brutal theocratic regime. Then the Iranian government began executing them by the thousands and the United States walked away. Now, in the middle of that crackdown, the Trump administration is planning to deport Iranian asylum seekers back to Iran, including gay men who face execution simply for who they are.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. It's Tim Moore from The Bullwark. I have some more just really tragic, disheartening, |
| 0:06.5 | maddening immigration news for you. And I think this story is particularly significant because it ties |
| 0:14.9 | into a Trump foreign policy issue that I think has gone overlooked and that I wish I had a chance to talk about more |
| 0:21.8 | this week. And that's what Trump has been doing with regards to Iran and the protests in Iran. |
| 0:27.5 | So I want to first get into the story about what's coming Sunday and then talk to you about the |
| 0:32.1 | implications. It is like so many of these immigration stories right now, so tragic and just blood boiling, |
| 0:40.7 | blood curdling, even. |
| 0:42.5 | My cortisol is spiking. |
| 0:43.9 | Shout out to my colleagues at MS Now, Laura Baron Lopez, and David wrote it for their work on this. |
| 0:49.7 | The Trump administration is planning to deport at least 40 Iranian nationals back to Iran as early as this |
| 0:56.5 | coming Sunday. |
| 0:57.8 | It's according to three sources with knowledge of the flight. |
| 1:00.9 | The flight is going to be leaving from Arizona. |
| 1:04.0 | Members of the group being deported by ICE fear for their lives, rightly, if they're sent |
| 1:09.2 | back to Iran, according to relatives and lawyers |
| 1:13.2 | that these reporters spoke to. |
| 1:15.8 | I want to highlight a couple of those deportees in particular. |
| 1:20.1 | Two of them are Iranians who are gay men. |
| 1:23.5 | They told their lawyer, Rebecca Wolfe, that they are set to be deported on that Sunday flight. |
| 1:29.1 | Bingay is illegal and punishable by death in Iran. |
| 1:31.9 | They executed two gay men in 2022. |
| 1:35.1 | These deportees are terrified, according to their lawyer. |
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