Photo: Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla / US Marine Corps, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). File photo from the August 2021 Kabul evacuation, not a photo of the planned deportation flights.
The Trump administration has made plans to deport nearly 200 Afghan nationals by first flying them to Pakistan, where they would then be returned overland to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a US official told CBS News. The first flight was expected as early as Tuesday, according to reports cited by lawmakers, though officials cautioned the plans are still in flux and it is unclear when any deportations could actually take place.
The plan surfaced in federal court, where an immigration enforcement official confirmed the Pakistan route in a sworn declaration, and it has now drawn a plea from 66 members of Congress to cancel the flights, warning that the people on board could face persecution or death if returned.
The Pakistan route, revealed in court
The route emerged in Sadat v. Mullin, a federal case involving Said Mansor Sadat, a 30-year-old Afghan national assigned to a special charter flight scheduled to depart from Alexandria, Louisiana. After US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff ordered federal officials to explain whether the planned charter would fly directly to Afghanistan or stop in Pakistan, Sergio Aguilar, a supervisory detention and deportation officer at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an October 30 declaration that he initially understood the charter would land in Afghanistan but subsequently learned Pakistan would be its destination.
"The plane's final destination would be Pakistan with further transport onward to Afghanistan," Aguilar wrote, adding that "the alien's intended removal destination was Afghanistan, as reflected in his removal order." The detour matters because the United States suspended operations at its Kabul embassy in 2021 and has no official diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, which complicates any effort to deport people directly to Afghanistan.
Who is on the list — and what they fear
According to the New York Times, which first reported the planned operation, the group includes relatives of Afghans who worked with the US military, as well as people who could face persecution because of their personal circumstances or perceived ties to the former Afghan government and foreign forces. The Free Press reported that as many as 80 Afghans could be moved as soon as Tuesday, including a 32-year-old man held in an ICE detention facility in western Louisiana who previously assisted US military forces in Kabul as a police officer. His wife told the outlet she fears he will be killed by the Taliban if he returns.
On Monday, 66 members of Congress from both chambers wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin urging them to cancel deportation flights involving Afghans and Iranians. The letter, led by Democratic Representative Scott Peters of California, followed reports that the administration planned to fly more than 150 detained Afghans from Louisiana to Pakistan for onward return. The Taliban-led Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it was prepared to engage constructively with Washington over the return of Afghan nationals.
What is confirmed — and what is not
What is established is the court declaration confirming the Pakistan route, the lawmakers' letter, and the reporting by CBS News, the New York Times and the Associated Press that the flights are planned. What is not established is whether any flight has departed, the exact timing, or the final list of passengers. The Department of Homeland Security has declined to confirm future removal operations, citing operational security and the safety of personnel, according to the Associated Press, and the US official who spoke to CBS News stressed that the plans could still change.
For the Afghans in detention, that uncertainty is the point of dread: a plan that could move within days, to a country whose government the United States does not recognise, with lawmakers' objections still unanswered.
Sources: CBS News, November 2026; The Free Press, November 3, 2026; Khaama Press, November 3, 2026; Associated Press and New York Times as cited in court and congressional reporting. Flight plans are as reported by the cited outlets and remain unconfirmed by the Department of Homeland Security; the administration has said plans are in flux.