Judge Bars Deporting Detained Afghans to Pakistan or Afghanistan

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, a judge in a New York federal court temporarily barred the Trump administration from deporting detained Afghan nationals to Pakistan or to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, NBC News and ABC News reported. Government lawyers had just told the judge that ICE has no flights lined up for such removals this week.

ABC described the ruling by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni as a temporary restraining order. Both outlets said it expires Saturday, which is Nov. 7, and NBC said the judge told all officials to abide by the government’s own statement about flights; ABC reported the order also noted that arranging such flights takes weeks. Neither report gave a further hearing date. Some other outlets put the end at Sunday, so the exact expiry is worth confirming against the court docket.

The government’s position was the reason for the order. ABC reported that government attorneys said ICE had nothing scheduled or confirmed, charter or commercial, to either country at least through the week’s end. That is a sharp change from the days before. A Justice Department filing last week indicated dozens of Afghans could be removed that week, ABC reported, and NBC, citing court documents obtained by The Associated Press, said flights from Louisiana to Pakistan had been planned for Monday. CBS News reported on Nov. 2 that a U.S. official described a plan to send nearly 200 Afghans in ICE custody to Pakistan and onward to Afghanistan, with the timing in flux, and that a sworn ICE declaration pointed to a Tuesday flight.

Detail from the administration side is limited in the reporting. An ICE spokesperson told ABC the agency does not comment on prospective removal operations. A DHS spokesperson, speaking to CBS, said people sent to third countries receive notice and assurances beforehand; the CBS account did not specify whether Pakistan had given assurances in this case.

On the broader policy, NBC reported that the administration has sent thousands of immigrants to nations that are not their homelands, a tool used when return to the country of origin is not possible, as with Afghanistan, where the United States has no formal relations with the Taliban government. ABC reported on Sept. 29 that the Supreme Court let the administration keep carrying out rapid third-country removals for now while it takes up the case in December, with three justices dissenting.

Sixty-six members of Congress, led by Rep. Scott Peters, a California Democrat, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, asking them to cancel flights of Afghans and Iranians, according to CBS and NBC. Peters told reporters lawmakers would keep pressing for answers about Pakistan’s role, ABC reported.

Advocates welcomed the pause but cautioned against reading too much into it. Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, called it “a reprieve, not a resolution,” in both NBC’s and ABC’s accounts. Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First told NBC that people returned to Afghanistan face grave dangers, including arbitrary detention. NBC also reported that more than 80 detained Afghans contacted advocates after ICE told them they could be deported this week through Pakistan.

Courts elsewhere have not been uniform, CBS reported: a judge in El Paso denied one detainee’s emergency request on Oct. 29, ruling the court lacked jurisdiction to halt his removal, while another detainee was released from the flight list after a Louisiana judge found his detention violated due process.