Federal judge blocks ICE from putting Afghan detainee on Pakistan-bound flight, citing suicide risk
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAA federal judge in New Mexico blocked immigration authorities on Tuesday from putting Sardar Akbari, an Afghan national, on an ICE charter flight headed to Pakistan scheduled for November 3, after his lawyers said he suffered an acute mental health crisis when he learned of the plan to remove him through a third country.
According to the ACLU of New Mexico, which represents Akbari alongside the Clinical Law Program of the University of New Mexico School of Law, the court barred the government from removing him from the United States for 14 days and until the court is satisfied that adequate safeguards are in place to protect him against the risk of suicide. The court also directed that he be transferred back to the District of New Mexico. A written order was still forthcoming when the ruling was announced Tuesday.
Akbari is detained at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, Texas, after being transferred there for staging for removal, his legal team said. He has been in ICE custody since late 2024 — court records put the start of his detention at about December 28, 2024 — and an immigration judge ordered him removed to Afghanistan in March 2026, an order that became final the following month. His case is Akbari v. Mullin, No. 1:26-cv-03573-KG-DLM, in the District of New Mexico.
At the heart of the case is the government's plan to fly Afghan detainees to Pakistan first, with onward transport over land to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The United States has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban government and closed its Kabul embassy in 2021, so it cannot carry out deportation flights directly to Afghanistan. A sworn declaration by an ICE detention and deportation officer, filed October 30 in a separate federal case, confirmed that a charter flight scheduled for Tuesday would land in Pakistan before the detainee was transported onward to Afghanistan. Akbari's lawyers said he was given no notice or opportunity to present a claim of fear of persecution or torture in Pakistan before he was staged for the flight.
“Mr. Akbari's case is a window into the abject horrors of our immigration system, and the government's 'third country removals' in particular,” said Shaw Drake, assistant professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law and co-counsel for Akbari. “If ICE is able to deport vulnerable immigrants like Mr. Akbari to a country other than his own without any notice or opportunity to claim fear, the fundamental due process safeguards to which we are all entitled are rendered virtually meaningless.”
“The U.S. government is obfuscating the role of intermediary countries like Pakistan, when ICE says it intends to conduct deportations to Afghanistan and other countries where it has no diplomatic relations,” said Becca Sheff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico. “Everyone at risk of being forcibly sent to a country to which they have no connections is entitled under the Constitution to safeguards against suffering harm there.”
The ruling is the latest court intervention in the fast-moving fight over the Pakistan route. One Afghan detainee assigned to the same Tuesday charter was removed from the flight list and released from ICE custody after a judge ruled his continued detention violated his due process rights, and 66 members of Congress urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Monday to cancel the deportation flights of Afghans and Iranians. The Department of Homeland Security has defended its third-country removal practices, saying deportees receive notice and diplomatic assurances of safety, while declining to address the planned flights in detail.
Sources: ACLU of New Mexico, “Federal Court in New Mexico Blocks ICE from Deporting Afghan National to Pakistan Without Adequate Safeguards” (Nov. 3, 2026); CBS News, “ICE planning to deport Afghans through Pakistan, official says” (Nov. 2, 2026); U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, Akbari v. Mullin, No. 1:26-cv-03573-KG-DLM (court filing, Oct. 28, 2026).
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