Pakistan’s announcement in October 2023 that it would deport all unregistered migrants raised fears among the country’s nearly two million undocumented Afghans that they would be deported to harmful conditions. Pakistan says the move is aimed at curbing the growing influence of terror outfits operating in its border region. However, critics, adding that the United States and the Afghan Taliban government, warn that this could lead to additional radicalization.
The deportation order applies to all “unregistered foreigners” remaining in Pakistan as of November 1, 2023. Afghan citizens are most directly affected: more than 4 million reside in Pakistan, and an estimated 1.7 million are undocumented. Many have lived there for decades, having fled Afghanistan in the 1980s during the country’s occupation by the Soviet Union. Smaller numbers of undocumented Somalians and Yemenis living in Pakistan are also threatened by this new policy.
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To carry out the policy, Pakistan’s government has had to hastily create forty-nine new deportation centers, and conditions there are reportedly grim. Some 15,000 Afghans are crossing the border daily and an estimated 450,000 have already left. Pakistani officials have offered assurance that Afghan residents with legal documentation will not be expelled, but there have been reports that some have been targeted anyway. This has led many legal residents to preemptively flee the country, fearing intimidation by Pakistani authorities and eviction by landlords. Meanwhile, the country’s Supreme Court has begun hearings challenging the order.
Islamabad says the policy is primarily aimed at combating terrorism. The contentious border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, also known as the “Durand Line” after the British diplomat who negotiated it, has been home to extremist groups for decades.
These come with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic State of Khorasan, an offshoot of the broader Islamic State group. Pakistani officials have blamed Afghan citizens for the sharp, high-profile terrorist attacks and accused the Taliban-led Afghan government of harboring militants. “A significant portion of those involved in criminal and terrorist activities are among those illegal immigrants,” Pakistan’s acting prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, said in November 2023.
Some analysts say Pakistan hopes to pressure the Taliban government to take terrorism more seriously. Others underscore the preference for the ethnic Pashtun population, a large minority to which many Afghan immigrants belong and which the influential Pakistani military considers a separatist threat.
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This is not the first time Pakistan has cited security considerations as part of a migration crackdown: In 2016, it deported some 600,000 Afghan migrants. Human Rights Watch called the exodus “the largest illegal and massive return of refugees in the world in recent memory. “times. ” Soon after, Pakistan began building a fence along the Durand Line.
The evictions coincide with a tumultuous political and economic landscape ahead of national elections scheduled for February 2024.
Pakistan has faced intense polarization since its last elected prime minister, Imran Khan, was ousted in 2022 after falling out with the country’s military. His deportation sparked huge protests, especially after his arrest for fraud a year later. Despite his current incarceration, Khan intends to return and perhaps simply face another ousted prime minister: Nawaz Sharif, who fled to London in 2019 after being accused of corruption and returned in October 2023. However, experts say the military continues to make the decisions on stage. “The military, which exerts a strong influence over the provisional regime, is probably the [deportation] policy,” writes Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center.
As a result, none of the candidates will likely have much wiggle room on migration, as public opinion remains staunchly anti-immigrant. Khan, a Pashtun, is said to have criticized the deportation policy, but as prime minister he forced him to abandon his plan for access to citizenship for Afghans following denunciation by opposition parties. Sharif, meanwhile, oversaw the 2016 mass deportation.
Some analysts say Pakistan’s deepening economic crisis, one of the worst the country has experienced since independence in 1947, has contributed to anti-immigration political sentiment. Food and fuel costs soared, the Pakistani rupee depreciated rapidly, and the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves declined. Blackouts across the country due to the country’s chronic lack of investment in infrastructure have further shaken the economy; Islamabad was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund for $3 billion in loans. The budget crisis has reportedly prompted the government to allocate undocumented immigrants an exit payment of $830, more than a share of the average annual source of income in Pakistan.
The factor has drawn complaints from the United Nations, the United States and human rights organizations, which have called on Islamabad to halt deportations and comply with its foreign obligations to ensure adequate reparations for refugees. Pakistan has never ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention and therefore has no national coverage for refugees. However, legal analysts say the deportations still violate foreign human rights criteria that prohibit asylum seekers from returning to a harmful or oppressive situation.
Human rights advocates say Afghanistan also meets those criteria and that the humanitarian situation has further deteriorated since the Taliban takeover in 2021, raising the risk that refugees in Pakistan will face deportation to Afghanistan. Officials say they are U. S. visas for at least 25,000 at-risk Afghans, adding wartime allies, journalists and women’s rights activists.
The expulsions could also further worsen Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan, which has condemned the policy. The currency strain faced by thousands of returnees may complicate relief efforts, given ongoing Western sanctions against the Taliban. Afghanistan has asked for more foreign aid, citing the Iranian component’s willingness to expel its Afghan population, but many donors remain hesitant. At the same time, some analysts say Islamabad’s plan to curb terrorist attacks by deporting migrants may backfire by fueling grievances and diminishing Kabul’s willingness to cooperate.
Megan Fahrney is an editorial intern at CFR.