Trump administration prepares to deport Afghan refugees to Pakistan

The Trump administration is preparing to deport dozens of Afghan immigrants and asylum seekers to Pakistan aboard the first such flight, a senior administration official told NBC News — a move that critics say could put their lives in danger.

The proposed deportation flight, which has not been publicly announced, could take place as early as Monday, according to rights advocates and the detainees’ families.

Among those facing deportation are relatives of Afghans who worked with the US military in its 20-year war against the Taliban, now back in power. Those deported could face serious repercussions if Pakistan sends them back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, as is widely expected.

Afghans driven from their country by war and political instability have been welcomed by the United States for decades, including tens of thousands who fled the country following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in 2021. President Donald Trump suspended the admission of Afghans and other refugees upon his return to office last year as part of a broader immigration crackdown.

His administration has deported thousands of people to countries not their own, many of them in Africa, in what immigration lawyers say is an attempt to circumvent international laws barring the return of asylum seekers to the countries from which they fled. The legality of these so-called deportation agreements to third countries is expected to be debated by the Supreme Court in December.

It’s unclear what kind of formal agreement the United States might have with Pakistan, but the senior administration official said the U.S. charter plane could not land there without the knowledge and approval of the Pakistani government. The expulsion plan had already been reported by Bloomberg and the New York Times.

Bloomberg cited a federal government official familiar with the plans as the 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 he confirmed that in recent days at least 80 Afghans had been transferred to Louisiana from 34 other ICE facilities across the country, 19 of them without legal representation.

He said it was possible there were hundreds of Afghans at the central Louisiana ICE processing center, which served as a hub for ICE detainees before their deportation from the United States.

If the United States sends Afghan detainees to Pakistan, they likely won’t stay 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 arrive in an Afghanistan hit 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 hardline Islamic policies.

VanDiver said the Trump administration would most likely be aware that Afghans sent to Pakistan would be at high risk of being sent back to Afghanistan.

“You don’t have to be so smart to figure out that they’re sending them to Pakistan to finish the job,” he said.

Whether or not they worked for the U.S. military, VanDiver said, any Afghans deported from the United States would be viewed with suspicion by the Taliban and risk persecution, imprisonment or worse.

That does not appear to be a major concern for the White House, said the senior administration official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“The administration’s position is: ‘These individuals have no status in our country, so we don’t really care what happens to them,'” the official said.

VanDiver and others say the Trump administration’s treatment of Afghan allies could also have long-term consequences for U.S. national security by discouraging people in other countries from working with U.S. forces in future conflicts.

Asked if the Trump administration was concerned about that, the official said, “I don’t think they care.” »

The White House referred a request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, whose spokesperson said the agency could not confirm removal operations “for operational security reasons.” ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

A State Department spokesperson said the agency had “no plans to make an announcement.”

“We reaffirm our position that all countries must be able to manage their borders and immigration processes in a way that ensures the safety, security and prosperity of their citizens,” the spokesperson said.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

The senior administration official said Afghans on the flight could include people under deportation orders, people who have been denied asylum and people whose temporary protected status was terminated by the Trump administration. Many Afghans facing deportation have sought asylum after crossing the border into the United States from Mexico, VanDiver said, and some of their cases are still ongoing.

“We just sat there and cried.”

Charlotte, a U.S. citizen whose Afghan husband has been in ICE custody since early 2025, said he was moved from Pennsylvania to central Louisiana this month and will be deported in early November. She declined to be identified by her full name, fearing her husband could be targeted by the Taliban.

Charlotte said she and her husband, whose asylum application had been pending for nine years, were visiting family in Maryland last year when he accidentally crossed the border into West Virginia and was arrested. Although he had his valid Illinois driver’s license, he did not have his work permit with him.

“When he was arrested,” she said, “the sheriff actually said, ‘I’m an ICE agent. You’re going to be taken into immigration custody. I don’t care if the charges are dismissed, or if you have a five-year work permit or a Social Security card. I don’t care if you’re legal. The Trump administration just took over – you’re going straight into immigration custody.'”

Charlotte sold their home in Illinois and moved to Maryland with their son, now 6, so she could visit her husband at the ICE facility where he was being held in Pennsylvania, about 100 miles away.

“I lost my beautiful house, our car, we left everything behind,” she said.

Over the next 20 months, when she took her son to see his father at the Moshannon Valley treatment center, they were always separated by Plexiglas.

“They never let him hug him once,” Charlotte said. “We would sit there and cry every time.”

But at least they knew where he was and that he was OK, she said. Now that he’s in Louisiana, she said, “we can’t even visit him or even say goodbye, he’s over 1,200 miles away.”

With her husband potentially sent to Pakistan or Afghanistan – a country he has not been to since 2016 – the uncertainty is even greater; Charlotte said he grew a beard to comply with the Taliban’s strict rules regarding men’s facial hair.

“I’m just terrified that he’s not safe,” she said, “or that he’s being held in jail and there’s nothing I can do.”

Charlotte said she believes her husband was targeted for deportation because of a prior conviction for a nonviolent crime that has since been resolved.

“I still don’t think it should end our entire lives, for a child not to see their father,” she said.

“He is completely devastated and traumatized,” she said of their son. “He wants to fight. He wants to protest. He wants to talk to Donald Trump. He knows way more than he should.”

The preparations for the deportation flight come nearly a year after a shooting in Washington that killed one National Guard member and seriously injured another. The suspect, an Afghan national who served alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan and was evacuated to the United States in 2021, had been granted asylum by the Trump administration. Immigration restrictions were tightened after the shooting.

VanDiver said the Trump administration could also use the flight to Pakistan as a test for Camp As Sayliyah, a U.S.-run camp in Qatar, where more than 1,000 Afghans who were supposed to resettle in the United States have been stranded since Trump returned to power last year.

Asked about VanDiver’s claims, the White House referred a request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, whose spokesperson again said the agency could not confirm removal operations “for operational security reasons.”

According to AfghanEvac, in July, the camp housed 287 men, 319 women and 433 children. Most of them were allowed to be resettled in the United States after careful review, and many of the adults worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The group from Camp As Sayliyah also includes 150 relatives of American soldiers, AfghanEvac said.

The State Department said earlier this year that everyone would be evicted from the camp by March 31, a deadline that was later extended to September 30. In September, the Trump administration delayed its shutdown for another nine months, the Associated Press reported.

Earlier this year, the administration considered sending Afghans from Camp As Sayliyah to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is experiencing the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history.

In a statement released Friday, AfghanEvac accused the Trump administration of planning the Afghan deportation flight while the country is distracted by next week’s midterm elections, “hoping no one is watching.”

“The government will not say where these flights land, because it knows what happens to the people on board when they land,” the group said. “A government confident in what it does does not hide it. »