The Trump administration is preparing to deport dozens of Afghan immigrants and asylum seekers to Pakistan on the first such flight of its kind, a senior administration official told NBC News — a move critics say could put their lives at risk. The proposed deportation flight, which has not been publicly announced, could take place as early as Monday, according to rights advocates and families of detainees. Among those facing deportation are relatives of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military in its 20-year war against the Taliban, which is now back in power.
The deportees could face severe repercussions should Pakistan return them to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan as is widely expected. Afghans driven from their country by war and political instability have been welcomed by the U.S. for decades, including tens of thousands who fled the country following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in 2021. President Donald Trump halted admissions for Afghans and other refugees when he returned to office last year as part of a broader immigration crackdown.
His administration has deported thousands of people to countries that are not their own, many of them in Africa, in what immigration lawyers say is an effort to skirt international laws against returning asylum seekers to the countries they fled from. The legality of these so-called third-country deportation agreements is set to be debated by the Supreme Court in December. It is not clear what kind of formal agreement the U.S. may have with Pakistan, but the senior administration official said the U.S. charter flight would not be able to land there without the Pakistan government’s knowledge and approval.
The deportation plan was earlier reported by Bloomberg and The New York Times. Bloomberg cited a federal government official familiar with the plans as a source for its report, while The New York Times cited three U.S. officials. Shawn VanDiver, president of the San Diego-based advocacy group AfghanEvac, said it had confirmed that in recent days at least 80 Afghans have been moved to Louisiana from 34 other ICE facilities around the country, 19 of them without legal representation.
He said it was possible that there were hundreds of Afghans at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, which has served as a hub for ICE detainees before their deportation from the U.S. If the U.S. sends Afghan detainees to Pakistan, they are not likely to be there long. Pakistan, which has hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades, launched a sweeping crackdown in 2023, pressuring hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave the country and forcibly deporting others.
They are arriving to an Afghanistan battered by multiple humanitarian crises, including widespread malnutrition, as well as an ongoing military conflict with neighboring Pakistan and a dramatic rollback of women’s rights under the Taliban’s hard-line Islamic policies. VanDiver said the Trump administration would most likely be aware that Afghans sent to Pakistan would be at high risk of being returned to Afghanistan. Regardless of whether they worked with the U.S. military, VanDiver said, any Afghans flown from the U.S. would be viewed with suspicion by the Taliban and at risk of persecution, imprisonment or worse.
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