Photo: Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla, U.S. Marine Corps, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. File photo from the August 2021 Kabul evacuation, not a photo of the planned deportation flight.
President Donald Trump's administration plans to deport some Afghan immigrants to Afghanistan, a U.S. official and a coalition of veterans and advocacy groups said on Friday, in what would be one of the largest single expulsions of Afghans since the Taliban returned to power.
More than 150 Afghan immigrants are expected to be deported, the New York Times reported, citing U.S. officials. The administration has detained dozens of Afghan immigrants in Louisiana, and the first flight is expected as soon as Monday, the newspaper reported.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would not confirm future removal operations, citing operational security. The government has not publicly announced the operation.
Who is facing deportation
Many of those facing removal fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, said Shawn VanDiver, head of AfghanEvac, an advocacy group for Afghans who helped U.S. forces.
Some facing deportation are "brothers and sons of men who served alongside US forces, families the Taliban already has every reason to target," VanDiver said, according to Reuters.
AfghanEvac said its removal tracker had logged at least 30 reports from 15 detention facilities in 11 states since October 14. The group said some detainees were told they were going to Pakistan, others to Afghanistan, and none of the people whose cases it was tracking had been shown travel documents.
Lawyers for some detainees are challenging the deportations, according to the Times. The administration has already sent Afghans to third countries, including two flights to the Central African Republic since August, AfghanEvac said.
Why the route runs through Pakistan
A U.S. official said the deportations would be via Pakistan, Reuters reported. Washington cannot directly arrange deportations to Afghanistan because it lacks diplomatic ties with the Taliban government.
Pakistan has expelled more than 2 million Afghan nationals to Afghanistan since 2023, according to Reuters. It remains unclear whether Pakistani authorities have formally agreed to receive the deportees on this flight, according to reporting on the plan.
Bloomberg Law first reported on October 26 that detained Afghans were being notified of plans to deport them to Pakistan, citing a federal official, lawyers and advocacy groups. AfghanEvac had warned in an October 26 update that a special charter flight would leave Louisiana in the first week of November.
Timing, and what is still unconfirmed
The flight could leave as early as Monday, November 2, the day before the U.S. midterm elections on November 3, according to the Times reporting. Nothing in the reporting indicates the timing was chosen because of the vote, and the date remains provisional.
Trump has said his immigration crackdown and deportation drive aim to improve domestic security. Rights advocates say the crackdown violates due process and free speech protections and has created an unsafe environment for minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling, Reuters reported.
VanDiver urged Congress to pass legislation granting Afghans in the United States temporary protected status to protect them from deportation.
What happens next will depend on the legal challenges now under way and on whether the planned flight departs on Monday as reported. For the families involved, the central question is whether they will be returned to a country run by the same Taliban authorities many of them fled in 2021.
Sources: Reuters; The New York Times (via Reuters and Khaama Press); Bloomberg Law.