The Trump administration is preparing to deport dozens of Afghan immigrants and asylum-seekers to Pakistan on what a senior administration official told NBC News would be “the first flight of its kind.” The flight has not been publicly announced; advocates and families said it could leave as early as Monday, November 2. A court filing for one detainee, reviewed by ABC News, shows the flight's destination as Pakistan, “with further transport to Afghanistan.” Bloomberg and The New York Times first reported the plan.
The official said those aboard could include people with deportation orders, people denied asylum and people whose temporary protected status the administration ended. Shawn VanDiver of the advocacy group AfghanEvac said at least 80 Afghans had been moved to Louisiana from 34 other ICE facilities in recent days, 19 of them without lawyers, and that there may be hundreds at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center. Relatives of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military are among those facing deportation, NBC and ABC reported. The Independent reported that roughly 150 Afghans are scheduled; NBC, citing the official, says dozens.
The flight goes to Pakistan, not directly to Afghanistan. Pakistan has pressured hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave since a 2023 crackdown, and NBC reported that it is widely expected to return the deportees to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan; a senior ICE official's court filing, reported by the AP, describes “further transport onward to Afghanistan” (see the November 1 update below). It is not clear what agreement the U.S. has with Pakistan, though the official said the charter could not land there without the Pakistani government's knowledge and approval. DHS said it could not confirm removal operations “for operational security reasons,” and the State Department said it had “no plans to announce.” When this was written, no outlet had reported that the flight had left.
The senior official described the White House's view to NBC: “The administration's position is, 'These individuals do not have status in our country, therefore we don't really care what happens to them,'” the official said. Asked whether the administration worried about discouraging future cooperation with U.S. forces, the official said, “I don't think they care.” VanDiver: “You don't have to be that smart to figure out that they're sending them to Pakistan so that Pakistan will finish the job.” Democratic Rep. Scott Peters said, “Afghans who stood with American troops, and their families, are being quietly loaded onto a plane to Pakistan, where they will very likely be pushed to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.”
Trump halted refugee admissions for Afghans and others when he returned to office, NBC noted, and his administration ended temporary protected status for more than 11,000 Afghans, its notice stating that “the Taliban government is promoting tourism to shift its global image,” The Independent reported. The deportation decision is the administration's own.
Update (November 1, 2026): Federal officials have acknowledged the onward leg in court. “U.S. officials confirmed the Afghan deportations in sealed court documents obtained by the AP,” the Associated Press reported. In a document filed in federal court in Virginia on October 30, a senior ICE official acknowledged that an Afghan immigrant had been scheduled for an upcoming charter flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Pakistan, “with further transport onward to Afghanistan.” In a separate federal case in Oklahoma, the AP reported, prosecutors disclosed that another Afghan was scheduled to be deported to Afghanistan “sometime next week.” The AP said it was not immediately clear whether any of those designated for return have protective orders against being sent there.
Public accounts of the timing differ. The AP said flights could begin “as early as Monday,” November 2; The Hill, citing NBC, said a departure could come “as soon as Monday morning”; and Human Rights First told the AP it had confirmed a flight from Louisiana to Pakistan on Tuesday, November 3. No outlet had reported a departure as of November 1. DHS told The Hill, “ICE does not comment on prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger manifests, destinations, or individual case details.”
The Hill wrote that the U.S. is restricted from sending refugees straight to Afghanistan because it lacks diplomatic relations with the Taliban, and that past transfers through intermediary countries involved immigrants with terrorism or other serious criminal charges. Citing The New York Times, it said over 150 people are expected to be deported.
Update (November 2, 2026): The tracker found no report of a departure as of the evening of November 2. The ACLU of New Mexico said that day that a federal judge in New Mexico had blocked ICE from putting one Afghan detainee on what it described as an “ICE charter flight headed to Pakistan on November 3.” By the ACLU's account, the order in Akbari v. Mullin (No. 1:26-cv-03573-KG-DLM) bars his removal from the United States for 14 days and until the court is satisfied that the government has adequate safeguards in place, with a written order still to come. That is the account of his lawyers; the tracker has not seen an order.
Taliban officials said they have “deep concern over reports indicating that the United States intends to transfer a number of Afghan refugees to Pakistan” and are “ready to engage constructively in this matter,” ABC News reported.