Trump Plans to Deport 150 Afghans Through Pakistan Into Taliban Rule
The Trump administration is preparing to deport more than 150 Afghan immigrants through Pakistan, where they are expected to be forced across the border into Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The first charter flight could leave Louisiana as soon as Monday, November 2.
The administration has not publicly announced the operation. Reuters confirmed the plan Friday through a U.S. official and a coalition of veterans and refugee advocates. The New York Times separately reported that three U.S. officials, lawyers and court filings describe one of the largest single expulsions of Afghans from the United States.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has transferred Afghans from detention centers around the country to Louisiana. Court records reviewed by ABC News identify Pakistan as the flight’s destination, with onward removal to Afghanistan. Washington has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban and cannot directly arrange deportations there. Routing the flight through Pakistan gives the administration an intermediary prepared to carry out the final expulsion.
The people facing removal are not an abstract security category. Advocates say the group includes relatives of Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces, people who fled after the Taliban takeover in 2021 and at least one gay man. Some could face discrimination, imprisonment, torture or retaliation if returned.
Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, said some detainees are “brothers and sons of men who served alongside U.S. forces, families the Taliban already has every reason to target.” He warned that Pakistan is not a safe endpoint. Its government has expelled more than two million Afghans since 2023.
#AfghanEvac began tracking the operation before Friday’s wider disclosure. The organization reported on October 26 that ICE was assembling what it called a “Special High Risk Charter” in Louisiana for the first week of November. Lawyers had not been shown travel documents, while different detainees were told they would be sent either to Pakistan or Afghanistan.
That uncertainty is not incidental. U.S. law prohibits deporting a person to a country where a court has found that person would probably face persecution or torture. By naming Pakistan as the formal destination while anticipating removal onward to Afghanistan, the government can try to separate the flight listed on paper from the danger waiting at the end of the route.
One detainee identified only as Mohammad told the Times that his family fled Afghanistan in 1981, when he was two years old. Federal agents detained him last year. His lawyer said the government claimed it had obtained Afghan travel documents but had not produced them or explained how it secured them from Taliban authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security refused to confirm future removal flights, passenger lists or destinations, citing operational security. That silence prevents families and lawyers from knowing who is on the charter and limits the time available to seek emergency court orders.
This operation turns the history of the U.S. war in Afghanistan into a machinery of abandonment. Washington invaded in 2001, built a military and political order around Afghan translators, contractors and security personnel, then withdrew as the Taliban retook Kabul in 2021. The United States airlifted vulnerable Afghans under promises of protection. Five years later, the government is preparing to send some of those families back toward the same force they fled.
The administration will describe the charter as immigration enforcement. Its structure reveals something harsher: an attempt to outsource the dangerous final step. Pakistan becomes the deportation corridor. The Taliban becomes the receiving authority. U.S. officials maintain distance while detainees absorb the risk.
Congress and the courts still have time to stop the flight. VanDiver has urged lawmakers to grant Afghans temporary protected status. Attorneys are filing emergency motions. But every hour matters when detainees have been concentrated near a charter airport and the government will not disclose the manifest.
The central question is not whether Washington can move 150 people onto an aircraft. It is whether the United States can claim loyalty to its former Afghan partners while engineering their return to Taliban rule through a legal and geographic detour.
Sources: Reuters · ABC News · #AfghanEvac · Global Refuge
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