Over 13,000 Pakistanis deported in last four years

Interior ministry points out number of deportations has decreased

ISLAMABAD: As many as 13,777 illegal Pakistani immigrants were deported from various European countries over the past four years, the interior ministry told the National Assembly on Saturday.

Officials, however, pointed out that the number of deportees was “gradually decreasing because of effective measures to control human trafficking.” According to them, most of the deportations occurred because of “overstay, lost passports, entry refusal, illegal entry, illegal stay, voluntary returns, revocation of residence permit, rejected asylum cases, non-payment of taxes and fake (and forged) documents.”



Year-wise breakup

In 2013, as many as 5,279 immigrants were deported from European countries. This number declined to 4,330 in 2014 and 2,457 in 2015. Only 1,711 Pakistanis were deported last year.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) initiated a countrywide crackdown against human traffickers after November 18, 2015 on the directives of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Agencies such as FIA, Frontier Corps, Coast Guards, Balochistan Police/Levies, Maritime Security Agency (MSA) and ISI are responsible for intercepting human trafficking.

In 2014, there were 2,485 such interceptions while this figure jumped to 4,698 in 2015. Until November last year, 8,037 such cases were intercepted, the ministry maintained.

FIA had also been successful in identifying “agents, facilitators and masterminds” of illegal immigration rackets. As many as 1,888 raids were conducted by the FIA between November 18, 2015 and December 21 last year. Most of the arrests were made from Punjab with 1,510 detentions while 897 persons were arrested from the Islamabad Capital Territory.

Issues were settled and an understanding was reached between Pakistan and the European Union (EU) on deportations of Pakistanis in February last year. After Pakistan raised concerns over the sending of deportees without due verification, the EU agreed to adopt the verification process proposed by the ministry.



It was ensured that deportees would be sent back strictly in accordance with the Readmission Accord, immigration laws and procedures acceptable to Pakistan. The EU agreed to allow a 15-day intimation if deportees were sent by chartered flights and three-day period if deportees were sent back via commercial flights. This understanding also played an important role in decreasing the number of deportees.

Earlier, people with unknown nationalities were also deported to Pakistan but when Chaudhry Nisar took office as interior minister, Pakistan started to refuse entry to deportees who were sent back without verification, the lower house was told.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2017.