Pakistan ordered Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders and “all illegal foreigners" to leave the country, either voluntarily or through deportation starting on April 1, raising fears among the Afghan community of repression should they return to their homeland.
“The Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Program has been implemented since November 1, 2023. In continuation to government’s decision to repatriate all illegal foreigners, national leadership has now decided to also repatriate ACC holders,” the Pakistani Interior Ministry said in a statement on March 7.
SEE ALSO: U.S. May Put Bounty On Taliban Leaders Over Hostages, Rubio Says“All illegal foreigners and ACC holders are advised to leave the country voluntarily before March 31, 2025; thereafter, deportation will commence on April 1,” it added.
The ministry said that “sufficient time” has been given for the “dignified” departure of those affected and it pledged that “no one will be maltreated during the repatriation process.”
The Pakistani government has often blamed militant violence and criminal activity on Afghan citizens, allegations rejected by the extremist Taliban-led government in Kabul.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of providing a safe haven for extremists linked to Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TPP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, inside Afghanistan, charges the government in Kabul also rejects.
In late January, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government approved a plan to repatriate ACC holders but did not specify a date.
An Afghan woman in Pakistan told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on condition of anonymity that she had fled to Pakistan because the Taliban had violated basic human rights in Afghanistan.
SEE ALSO: Afghans Laud ICC Arrest Warrants Over Taliban's Repression Of Women"We call on the government of Pakistan to retract what it has said regarding us at this difficult time," she said.
Qaiser Khan Afridi, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Islamabad, told Radio Mashaal on March 7 that he is continuing to discuss the fate of Afghans with officials of the Pakistani government.
Pakistan's government in late 2023 launched the effort to repatriate foreign citizens -- the majority of whom are Afghans -- first focusing on foreigners with no legal documentation but now including those with the ACC, a document that had allowed Afghan asylum-seekers to temporarily remain in Pakistan.
When the repatriation program was announced, Abbas Khan, Pakistan's commissioner of Afghan refugees, told RFE/RL that refugees were given ACC documentation in 2016 in an agreement among the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the UNHCR.
"They agreed that those citizens would be gradually returned to Afghanistan. But that did not happen," Khan said.
Pakistan has been a popular refuge for Afghans for decades, beginning during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Others fled fighting during the ensuing Afghan civil war and the Taliban's first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.
Millions of Afghans returned to their homeland following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban from power.
But after the Taliban seized power again in 2021 amid the withdrawal of international forces, an estimated 700,000 more Afghans left for Pakistan to escape a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis and possible retribution by the Taliban.
According to UN data, more than 800,000 Afghans hold ACC status in Pakistan. Another 1.3 million are formally registered with the Pakistan government and hold a separate Proof of Residence (PoR) card. The statement did not mention the effect on those with PoR status.
The UN has estimated that at the peak, some 3.8 million Afghan refugees were in Pakistan, although Islamabad put the number at above 4.4 million.
Some 15,000 Afghans in Pakistan are awaiting to be approved for resettlement in the United States, although their status remains unclear after President Donald Trump's administration announced that the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) would be suspended for at least three months starting on January 27.