Pakistan Sets Plan to Deport 3 Million Afghans This Year

Pakistan has announced an ambitious plan to expel 3 million Afghans from its territory in 2025 following the expiration of a voluntary departure deadline for the capital region. The move targets illegal immigrants many of whom fled war and poverty in neighboring Afghanistan over decades. Officials say it’s a necessary step to secure borders and ease strain on resources in a nation grappling with its own economic woes.

The deadline for Afghans to leave Islamabad and nearby areas passed on Monday sparking a wave of enforcement actions. Authorities have rounded up thousands in recent weeks with reports of packed detention centers and buses heading to the border. Human rights groups warn of chaos and hardship for families who’ve built lives in Pakistan some for generations.

Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of 1979 with numbers swelling after the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. The government now claims many are a security risk pointing to crime and militancy tied to illegal aliens. Critics argue the mass deportation ignores the humanitarian crisis next door where Afghanistan remains unstable under Taliban rule.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has vowed to complete the expulsion by year’s end a target requiring over 8000 deportations daily. Police and military units are deployed to identify and detain those without valid papers a process already underway in urban hubs. Naqvi insists the policy is fair citing years of warnings and a now-expired amnesty for voluntary exits.

Afghan leaders have pleaded for leniency saying their country can’t absorb millions amid food shortages and a collapsed economy. Pakistan however is doubling down offering no extensions beyond the Monday cutoff. Some Afghans reportedly face violence or extortion from local officials as they’re forced out adding to the tension.

The plan’s scale dwarfs past efforts like the 2016 push that sent back 600000 Afghans over two years. Funding comes partly from a strained national budget with hopes that foreign aid might offset costs. Skeptics doubt Pakistan can pull it off without sparking a diplomatic row or worsening its own stability along the porous frontier.

Trump’s administration has stayed silent on the issue though border hawks in the U.S. may see it as a model for handling illegal immigration. Pakistan’s leaders frame it as a sovereign right to control who stays within their borders. For now the focus is on logistics with officials racing to meet an aggressive timeline that’s already displacing thousands daily.

The human toll is mounting as families are split and livelihoods lost in the rush to comply or flee. Advocates say many Afghans lack papers through no fault of their own having been born in Pakistan to refugee parents. As deportations ramp up the world watches a policy that could reshape the region’s fragile balance of security and compassion.