Pakistan PM says will not repatriate at-risk Afghans amid ongoing deportation drive

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said on Monday Pakistan would not repatriate Afghan nationals at risk of persecution in their homeland, as the country continues with a deportation drive against unregistered foreign nationals announced in October amid mounting security fears.
Faced with a spike in militant violence and suicide bombings in the different Pakistani cities since the beginning of the year, the government warned all “illegal immigrants” to voluntarily return to their respective countries before it launched a full-scale deportation program involving law enforcement agencies.
While senior Pakistani officials said their campaign was not targeting any specific community, the expulsion of foreign nationals predominantly affected Afghan nationals in the country amid allegations of their involvement in several militant attacks.
Several international rights organizations criticized the country for how it was deporting Afghan nationals amid reports of harassment even by registered refugees residing in Pakistan since the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country.
Pakistan also faced the question of Afghan nationals who recently fled their country to avoid persecution at the hand of the Taliban administration that seized Afghanistan’s political control in August 2021.
“We will not deport at-risk groups, such as musicians, journalists, and human rights activists [to Afghanistan],” Kakar wrote in an article published in UK-based Telegraph newspaper. “We do however need help from other countries.”
“Unfortunately, only 59,033 of the new arrivals have been resettled outside Pakistan, while 42,068 await evacuation to the west,” he said. “The rest have failed to put forward a convincing case to anyone for asylum, and continue to stay in Pakistan illegally.”
Kakar noted several western countries had also been facing the problem of illegal immigration which had even placed significant burdens on developed economies. However, he maintained that the magnitude of the problem was quite different in case of his own country.
“Over the last three to four decades, between four and five million migrants (roughly the population of Ireland) have arrived [in Pakistan],” he said. “Many have no right to remain.”
“Unfortunately, despite frequent opportunities to repatriate voluntarily, and multiple government attempts to register those who remain undocumented, a significant number has persistently refused to formalize their status, choosing instead to stay in the shadows,” he added.
The prime minister acknowledged Pakistan had benefited from hardworking and law-abiding migrants, though he noted the overall socio-economic and security cost of the influx had been staggering.
“Many work on the black market, paying no tax, depressing wages for legitimate workers,” he said. “They are also susceptible to exploitation by the criminal underworld, with all its disturbing links to terrorist organizations operating in the region.”
Kakar reiterated at least 16 Afghan nationals had carried out suicide attacks inside Pakistan, while 65 militants killed in encounters with security forces had been identified as Afghans since Aug. 2021.
“No responsible government can ignore such concerns,” he said. “Whenever we raised this with the interim Afghan government, they advised us to ‘look inwards’. We have finally decided to heed to their advice to put our house in order.”
The prime minister dismissed social media reports raising concerns about how the deportation drive was carried out by his government.
He also downplayed the risk of persecution of those going back to Afghanistan, saying the interim Afghan government had “shown visible concern for the welfare of those who return.”
According to official statistics shared by Radio Pakistan on Monday, 436,790 Afghans have returned to their homeland since the beginning of September.