Trump Plan to Deport Afghan Immigrants, Refugees Condemned as 'Sickening'
"The consequences could be prison, torture, or worse," said one human rights defender.
The Trump administration is preparing to deport more than 150 Afghan immigrants and refugees to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan via Pakistan, a move that drew fierce condemnation Friday from a range of critics—including human rights defenders and Democratic US lawmakers—who warned that such expulsions would place many of the deportees' lives in grave danger.
The New York Times reported that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has transferred Afghan detainees from facilities around the country to Louisiana in preparation for a chartered deportation flight expected to leave as soon as Monday.
The administration reportedly intends to send the Afghans to Pakistan, whose government would then expel them across the border into Afghanistan, where the Taliban has ruled since the US withdrew from the country in defeat over five years ago.
According to the Times, those slated for deportation include relatives of people who aided the US military invasion and occupation and at least one gay man. Both categories of people would face possible execution or severe persecution by the Taliban.
"Five years ago, Americans watched Afghans cling to planes to escape the Taliban. On Monday, our government plans to charter one back to their persecutors' hands," Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of refugee resettlement organization Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday.
"For the people on that manifest, the consequences could be prison, torture, or worse," she added. "For their families here, some of whom served alongside US servicemembers, it means losing a loved one without knowing whether they'll ever hear from them again."
Vignarajah implored the Trump administration to halt or reverse the plan before the flight departs.
"Pakistan is patently unsafe for Afghans," she said. "Its own government has made that clear by hounding them out of the country by the millions. Deporting Afghans into that crackdown is a deliberate decision to put them in harm's way."
Since 2023, Pakistan's government has expelled more than 2.7 million Afghans, according to Global Refuge, and has vowed to remove approximately 1.5 million who remain in the country regardless of their immigration status. The United Nations has documented killings, arbitrary detention, and torture of people associated with Afghanistan's former US-backed government and security forces.
The Taliban has also systematically stripped Afghan women and girls of the rights they gained during the US invasion, banning them from secondary schools, universities, and most employment, while imposing sweeping and draconian restrictions on their lives.
"Individuals returned to Afghanistan face grave, systematic dangers, including arbitrary detentions, executions, public flogging, and retaliatory violence," the group Human Rights First said Thursday. "Women and girls face severe restrictions on basic freedoms, including systematic denials of education, employment, and public speech."
Several Democratic US lawmakers, including Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, decried the planned deportations.
"We made a promise to our Afghan allies—that after aiding and protecting our troops during the conflict in Afghanistan, America would not abandon them," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). "This administration is betraying that promise, deporting them to potential torture and death."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) posted: "While he hopes nobody is watching, Trump greenlit the expulsion of more than 150 Afghans back to Taliban rule, where they will face almost certain persecution, torture, or worse. Accountability for Trump’s cruel immigration agenda cannot come soon enough."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) also weighed in, writing on social media, "Our Afghan allies risked everything to help the United States."
"Now Trump plans to send their relatives back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan," he added. "Repaying their sacrifice with betrayal is shameful and will make it much harder for America to secure assistance in future conflicts."
