The Trump administration has detained dozens of Afghan immigrants in Louisiana and plans to deport them to Afghanistan, according to three U.S. officials. The group includes people who could face discrimination or persecution under the Taliban, including relatives of people who helped the U.S. military and at least one gay man.
More than 150 Afghan immigrants are expected to be deported, one official said, making this one of the largest single expulsions of Afghans.
By sending them to Pakistan — which would then send them to Afghanistan — the Trump administration has found a way around the hurdles that have so far prevented vulnerable Afghans from being sent back to face repression or retaliation by the Taliban.
Lacking diplomatic relations with the Taliban, the United States cannot arrange deportations to Afghanistan. And some Afghans living in America have been granted legal protections from U.S. judges, which prevent them from being sent back to Afghanistan because of the persecution they would likely face under the Taliban government.
The officials say the deportation is, in effect, to Afghanistan, and that is what the detainees have been told by ICE. But Pakistan will oversee their expulsion over the border to Afghanistan.
The first flight is expected to leave as soon as Nov. 2.
One of the Afghans marked for deportation is Mohammad, 47, who said he was detained last year by federal agents while charging his electric car and had been held in Oklahoma. Last week, he was moved to a prison in Louisiana to be deported, he said in a phone interview from the prison. He said his family left Afghanistan as refugees in 1981, when he was 2 years old, after the Soviet Union invaded.
Over four decades, Mohammad navigated life in America. After serving time in his early 20s for two felonies, he lost his permanent residency. Mohammad said he came to accept being gay and married an American man in 2020.
“That right there is automatic grounds for imprisonment and execution there,” Mohammad said. In Afghanistan, homosexuality is punishable by death. He spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his middle name, explaining, “I am afraid for my life.”
