Kabul asks Washington to act responsibly as 150 Afghans face deportation

What did Kabul actually ask Washington for?

On Monday, November 2, 2026, Afghanistan's Taliban foreign ministry published a formal statement asking the United States to adopt a responsible and measured approach to deporting Afghan immigrants, and declared Kabul ready to engage with Washington constructively. Spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said decisions affecting Afghan citizens should be taken "with clear mutual understanding, necessary coordination, and consideration of the rights and legitimate demands of the individuals concerned."

The statement came three days after a US official and a coalition of veterans and advocacy groups said the Trump administration plans to deport some Afghan immigrants. The New York Times reported more than 150 expected deportees, with the first flight possible as early as Monday. With no US diplomatic ties to the Taliban government, the route runs via Pakistan; part of the broader immigration crackdown shaping the final stretch of the midterm campaign. Kabul added a pointed warning: "Third countries should not treat the citizens of another country as a matter of bargaining in exchange for limited temporary concessions or other considerations."

What do the verified facts establish?

The statement exists, dated Monday November 2, and its operative phrases are quoted consistently across the Reuters wire and the France 24/AFP dispatch: the call for responsibility, the offer of constructive engagement, the warning against bargaining chips. The deportation plan exists as reporting, not a US announcement: one US official and a veterans-and-advocacy coalition described it Friday; the New York Times supplied the scale and timing.

The route is structural, not chosen: no US–Taliban diplomatic relations means no direct deportation flights to Kabul, so Pakistan oversees the handover at its border, per the Times citing anonymous US officials. The human profile of part of the group is known: AfghanEvac and US media say the deportees include relatives of Afghans who assisted US forces before the 2021 withdrawal; people advocacy groups describe as endangered by removal. Some hold or held protections granted after the 2021 takeover, including special immigrant visas, and Kabul has repeatedly promised this year that former foes could safely return.

What remains unconfirmed at this hour?

No manifest is public: the identities of the 150-plus people, their individual legal statuses, and how many hold valid visas, pending asylum claims, or special immigrant visa applications are all unknown. Whether the first flight actually departed on Monday has been confirmed by neither government, and Washington has made no public response to Kabul's offer. The nature of any US–Kabul coordination is undeclared: no mechanism, channel, or agreement has been described.

Pakistan's precise role is undefined in the public record. The Times reports Islamabad will "oversee" the expulsion into Afghanistan, but no Pakistani statement has confirmed the terms or safeguards. Nor is it known how deportees will be processed across the border, registered, screened, released, or detained, or what protections Washington arranged for people returned to a government it does not recognize. Finally, it is unknown whether any of the 150-plus cases are subject to court stays or appeals.

Why does a routine deportation become a diplomatic event?

First, because of who may be on the planes: relatives of Afghans who assisted US forces before the fall of Kabul; translators' families, drivers' families, the human remainder of the 2021 evacuation. Returning them to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, whatever Kabul's amnesty promises, tests whether Washington's protection of its former local partners survives its deportation machinery.

Second, as diplomacy without relations: Washington does not recognize the Taliban government, yet must coordinate the physical handover of people with it; through a third country. Kabul's offer of constructive engagement is a bid for a working relationship on Washington's terms, while the "bargaining chips" warning tells both Washington and Islamabad that the deportees are not currency in the border-militancy dispute or in the administration's wider pressure campaigns.

Third, as a precedent: third-country deportation routing is becoming standard US enforcement practice, and a Kabul handover arranged with an unrecognized government sets a template others will cite; on the eve of the midterms, where immigration enforcement is the Republican closing argument.

What does the 5D lens reveal beneath the statement?

Geopolitically, the statement is Kabul practicing statehood without recognition. Unable to sign a normal deportation agreement, the Taliban government issues a text that performs the functions of one: accepting the returns, asserting jurisdiction over its citizens, setting conditions. This is diplomacy by press release, aimed as much at Islamabad as at Washington; the "bargaining chips" line suggests Kabul suspects its citizens are being priced into a Pakistan-side bargain over border militancy.

Economically, the flows are small but the mechanism is expensive; and the sharper signal is reputational: each deportation of an SIV-adjacent family hardens the lesson that proximity to the US project in Afghanistan carried lasting personal risk, repricing the willingness of local partners in future conflicts. Demographically, the returns compound a forced-return wave, with Pakistan and Iran pushing large numbers of Afghans back this year.

Historically, the echo is 2021; the evacuation's unfinished business. The 2021 promise was protection; the 2026 policy is removal. Structurally, the episode normalizes a workaround: deporting to a country you do not recognize by routing through one you do. Expect this template to be cited again.

What are the knock-on effects nobody is naming?

First, Pakistan's leverage grows: Islamabad sits physically between the deportees and Afghanistan, and Kabul's pre-emptive "bargaining" warning suggests it already sees the card Pakistan now holds in the border-militancy dispute. Second, the AfghanEvac and veterans' networks face a role reversal, built on getting people out, now fighting to keep them from being sent back, as the likely litigation infrastructure for individual cases. Third, every formal exchange with Washington chips at the Taliban's post-2021 isolation: Kabul will bank this as functional engagement; Washington will call it a logistical exception. Fourth, the midterm politics: a deportation touching former US allies converts an abstract enforcement debate into named human consequences, on the eve of a vote.

What should readers watch in the coming days?

Watch the flights first: confirmation, or denial, that a first deportation flight departed on or around Monday sets the tempo. A departure turns the statement into damage control; a delay turns it into negotiation space. Watch for the conspicuously absent Pakistani statement: what Islamabad agreed to, and on what terms, will decide whether the handover is orderly or a new friction point.

Watch the courts: filings are likely within days for any asylum or SIV cases among the 150-plus, and individual stays could reshape the operation. Watch the advocacy coalition's next move, the groups that surfaced the plan Friday have the casework to name names. And watch Washington's response to Kabul's offer: silence confirms Pakistan-managed logistics; any acknowledgment would mark the first formal US–Taliban coordination on population movement since the withdrawal. Either way, the midterms decide how loudly this story is told, immigration enforcement is the closing argument of a campaign entering its final hours, and Kabul has handed both sides new material.