Afghan deportation flight scheduled for Tuesday faces court fights and a plea from Congress
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAA chartered deportation flight scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, would land in Pakistan before Afghan detainees are transported onward over land to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, a U.S. immigration enforcement official confirmed in a sworn court declaration — as the plan drew a plea from Congress to cancel the flights and fresh emergency court fights over individual detainees.
The declaration, filed October 30 in the federal case of Said Mansor Sadat, a 30-year-old Afghan national assigned to a special charter flight departing from Alexandria, Louisiana, came after U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff ordered federal officials to explain whether the flight would go directly to Afghanistan or stop in Pakistan. Supervisory detention and deportation officer Sergio Aguilar of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote that he first understood the charter would land in Afghanistan but later 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 United States has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban government and closed its Kabul embassy in 2021, which complicates any direct deportation to Afghanistan.
Sadat has since been removed from the flight list and released from ICE custody, his attorney said, after a judge ruled his continued detention violated his due process rights. A second Afghan national represented by the same attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, was awaiting a decision on an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order as of Monday night. Both men were told independently they would be flown to Pakistan on Tuesday before being transported overland to the Afghan border, the attorney said — but not who would take them overland, or how.
On Monday, 66 Democrats from the House and Senate signed a letter urging Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to cancel any planned deportation flights of Afghans and Iranians. “Our nation made a promise to stand by Afghans who risked their lives and their families' safety to stand by U.S. service members,” the letter reads. “This mass deportation — potentially to their deaths — is a violation of that promise and our moral obligations to the Afghan community who stood alongside our troops.”
The administration has made plans to deport nearly 200 Afghan nationals in ICE custody, accused of violating U.S. immigration law, by first sending them to Pakistan, a U.S. official told CBS News — though the official cautioned the plans are still in flux and it is unclear when such deportations could take place. The Free Press reported that as many as 80 Afghans could be sent back as soon as Tuesday, including a 32-year-old man detained in western Louisiana whose wife said he would be killed by the Taliban because he assisted U.S. military forces in Kabul as a police officer. Advocates warn the group includes relatives of people who helped U.S. forces and at least one gay man, and that the Taliban has a documented history of persecuting Afghans perceived to have assisted the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to address the planned removal flights, citing operational security, but defended its broader third-country removal practices, saying deportees receive notice and diplomatic assurances of safety. The department did not specify whether Pakistan had provided such assurances, or whether any guarantees would extend to the deportees' onward transportation and treatment in Afghanistan. A DHS spokesperson added: “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.” Pakistan's embassy did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.
The planned removals have also surfaced in separate federal court proceedings in Texas and Louisiana. In Texas, a judge ruled October 29 that the district court lacked jurisdiction to halt the removal of Basir Ahmad Ahmadi, an Afghan detainee in El Paso who had been nominated for an Afghanistan removal mission tentatively scheduled for early November; in Louisiana, another Afghan national, Khaled Khaleeq, sought emergency intervention after learning from news reports and other detainees that he might be deported to Pakistan or Afghanistan, and a federal judge denied his request on October 30, though reconsideration notices have since been filed.
The Taliban-led Foreign Ministry in Kabul voiced its own concern Monday over reports that the United States intended to transfer Afghan nationals to Pakistan, calling for coordination and urging that the rights and dignity of Afghan citizens be respected. It warned that third countries should not bargain over the transfer of another country's nationals “in pursuit of short-term, limited concessions or other considerations.”
Sources: CBS News, “ICE planning to deport Afghans through Pakistan, official says” (Nov. 2, 2026); The Free Press, “ICE Is Set to Deport Dozens of Afghans. They Fear ‘Certain Death.’” (Nov. 3, 2026).
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