ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Thursday it was considering plans to expel hundreds of thousands more Afghans who have been longtime residents of the country, the latest move in a months-long government crackdown on illegal immigration.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters that the plan was still in the works and that the government might ultimately reject it.
This is the “second phase” of the “Illegal Aliens Repatriation Plan,” which envisages people being given identity cards called “Afghanistan National Cards” that will regularise their stay in Pakistan for a certain period of time.
“At this stage, there is no date that I can tell you,” she told a weekly press conference in the capital, Islamabad, adding that an announcement about the measures would be made “at an appropriate time”.
Pakistan’s crackdown on illegal immigration has drawn widespread criticism from the United Nations, aid agencies and human rights groups.
An estimated 600,000 Afghans have returned to Afghanistan since the deportations began, with thousands being deported every day, but the pace of deportations has since slowed and appears to have stopped in recent months.
Following a visit by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Wednesday, Islamabad announced it would extend the stay of 1.45 million Afghan refugees residing in the country.
During his visit, Grandi welcomed the Pakistani government’s moratorium on deportations.
But Baloch denied this was the case and said the anti-immigrant crackdown targeting those without valid documents had not been stopped. He said deportations were only aimed at those in Pakistan illegally and were being carried out in a “humane manner”.
She insisted that Afghan refugees living here had no need to worry as their stay had expired.
Amnesty International said Thursday it welcomed Islamabad’s decision to extend the stay by one year, and the group’s South Asia regional researcher, Tyagi Ruwanpathirana, called on Pakistan to “extend this lifeline to all Afghan refugees in Pakistan.”
She also called on Pakistan to formally halt its “programme of repatriating illegal foreigners” and halt all forcible deportations of Afghans in the country.
Pakistan has hosted an estimated 1.7 million Afghans over the years, most of whom fled during the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989. More than 500,000 people have fled Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in 2021, and thousands remain in Pakistan waiting to be resettled in the United States or elsewhere.
Baloch also called on the international community to speed up the relocation process for thousands of Afghans who fled the Taliban seizure of power, most of whom he said remain in Pakistan.
These Afghans were desperately waiting for their visa applications to be processed so that they could depart for the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy and several other countries.
Delays in resettlement have left these Afghans in a vulnerable position, struggling with economic hardship and lack of access to health care, education and other services in Pakistan.
Baloch’s remarks appear to have taken the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation by surprise.
Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees, said he had received word through official channels that the deportations had stopped. He said no Afghan refugees, with or without proper documentation, had been forcibly returned from Pakistan and there had been no reports of arrests in the neighbouring country in the past 24 hours.
Haqqani appealed to the Islamabad government to allow Afghans enough time to leave Pakistan in an orderly manner and to avoid any forced repatriations.
“Our second demand is for our Afghan brothers to voluntarily return to their home country,” he said. “There is peace in the country now… Refugees should return to their home country.”
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