U.S. Prepares First Deportation Flight of Afghans to Pakistan, 'With Further Transport Onward to Afghanistan'

NBC News reported on Oct. 30, 2026 that the administration was preparing to deport Afghans to Pakistan “on the first flight of its kind.” In a sealed filing obtained by AP, a senior ICE official described a charter from Alexandria, Louisiana, “with further transport onward to Afghanistan.” AP’s documents put the first flights “as early as Monday”; the group Human Rights First said it had confirmed a flight “on Tuesday.” Neither date is confirmed by DHS, which said it could not confirm removal operations “for operational security reasons.”

The group AfghanEvac told NBC that “at least 80 Afghans” had been moved to Louisiana from 34 other ICE facilities, 19 of them without lawyers. A senior administration official, unnamed by NBC, described the position this way: “These individuals do not have status in our country, therefore we don’t really care what happens to them.” Whether the flight has left is not established by these reports.