By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 27, 2023
Pakistan has sent scores of Afghans back to their country despite their possessing documents confirming they are being considered for resettlement to the United States.
The expulsions are part of a broader Pakistani crackdown on more than 1.7 million “undocumented foreigners,” who are predominantly Afghans.
Nearly half a million Afghans have returned to their country since early October, when Islamabad announced the forced repatriation drive.
“The process of our resettlement [in the United States] should be expedited or the problems of Afghan asylum seekers will worsen,” Gul Wali Ahmadzai, an Afghan in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar who is waiting to be resettled, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
“Although we carry a letter of protection from the United States, it has not deterred the [Pakistani] police from detaining us,” said another Afghan asylum seeker who requested anonymity.
“The police do not allow us to even call or text the U.S. government hotline,” he added.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad sent protection letters to some 25,000 Afghans. The letters proved to Pakistani authorities that they were being processed for resettlement in the United States.
U.S. officials say they are trying to keep in touch with these Afghans in Pakistan. Washington has established an emergency hotline on WhatsApp in Dari, Pashto, and English.
A senior State Department official told Reuters that his country had “no formal way to track these kinds of cases,” adding that the number of Afghans deported while awaiting U.S. resettlement was “very small.”
But Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, the main coalition of groups helping Afghan resettlement, told Reuters that at least 130 Afghans waiting for U.S. special immigration visas in Pakistan had been expelled and returned to their country.
He said the Pakistan police have arrested more than 230 such Afghans. Of these, about 80 have since been released.
“The letters matter in some cases and not others,” said VanDiver. “Not all local officers are abiding by it.”
Senior Pakistani government leaders have repeatedly assured their Western counterparts that Islamabad will not deport the tens of thousands of Afghans whose cases are being considered for immigration.
On December 13, Islamabad extended a deadline to allow tens of thousands of Afghans waiting to be resettled in a third nation to stay in the country for two more months.
Under the extension, the Afghans can remain in the country until February 29. Previously, they were to leave by the end of December.
With reporting by Reuters
Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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