The United States has deported roughly 100 Iranians back to their home country amid an expanding immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, the New York Times reported citing top officials.

A US-chartered flight carrying the deportees took off from Louisiana on Monday (local time) and was scheduled to arrive in Iran via Qatar on Tuesday, the officials said.

The deportation followed months of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, according to two senior Iranian officials privy to the discussions who spoke to NYT. It marks a rare moment of direct cooperation between the two governments, coming just months after Trump ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Iranian officials told NYT the planeload of deportees included men and women, some of them couples. Their identities a

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