Illegal Afghan migrants

Everyone is offering an opinion on Afghan migrants and refugees these days without pausing to reflect on the facts behind the issue. As is usual in times like these, the bleeding heart Good Samaritans come out of the wood work to castigate the policymakers. The diatribes are clothed in humanitarian hues while taking up the cudgels on behalf of the dispossessed. The cri de cœur nowadays by the international NGOs, the UNHCR, and few local NGOs is about the ‘hastiness’ and the ‘heartlessness’ of the deportation drive. A little research would reveal the conflict of interest behind the continual riffing on social media about the ‘unjust treatment’ being meted out to the Afghan refugees.

The fact is that the Afghan refugees have been hosted by Pakistan most munificently since 1979, a period of over four decades in which these refugees were allowed to remain in UN-run camps besides being allowed to work and settle anywhere. Pakistan-Afghan border was treated as an open border where the Afghan refugees and migrants moved unimpeded in and out of Pakistan. While the state looked the other way, the illegal practice of smuggling continued unabated earning the sobriquet of trade from multiple stakeholders benefiting from the practice. The tolerance of this illegality by the powerful ruling establishments in both countries spawned an eco-system of crime including human trafficking, narcotics trade, smuggling, kidnappings for ransom and extortion.

The eco-system of crime created powerful mafias that shared the spoils of the illicit profits with the bureaucracy, violent non-state actors and some influential elements of the governance structure. While this arrangement built stakes for every influential quarter in both the countries, it wreaked havoc with Pakistan’s security and economy. No one cared to measure the impact of this illegal spectrum on the national economy as well as law and order. The state never felt the need to develop an alternative livelihood model for the dwellers of ex-FATA, now called Newly Merged Districts (NMDs). The impact on the national economy and the law and order however was devastating.

According to ACE Money, Pakistan loses around $23 billion annually due to black market and smuggling of US currency and fuel. The annual loss to national economy on account of smuggling is $3.3 billion, according to a joint study carried out by Harvard University and Ministry of Commerce in 2020. Due to this prevalent culture of lawlessness in areas contiguous to Afghanistan, terrorist organisations like TTP have developed stakes in the illegal activities in the shape of ‘Benami’ (Unnamed) properties, recruitment networks in religious seminaries, drug running and misuse of Afghan Transit Trade (ATT). The large number of illegal Afghan migrants act as a support network to TTP as well as other Afghanistan-based terror networks.

Ever since the present Afghan Interim Government (AIG) took control of Afghanistan, Pakistan has been trying to wheedle some concessions out of Kabul to help stabilise its border regions. Every engagement with Taliban yielded empty promises and little was done on ground to rein in non-state actors like TTP. Pakistan even went to the extent of entering into parleys with TTP on the express desire of Taliban government but the talks yielded no result. The TTP depredations in Pakistan’s NMDs spiked after IAG assumed control of Kabul. In the last two years Pakistan has suffered 2,867 civilian casualties, with 500% increase in suicide bombings.

When Pakistan remonstrated with the IAG about its inability to deny sanctuaries to TTP, it was told to put ‘your own house in order’. Due to longstanding Afghan irredentism and the Afghan government’s interest in keeping the border porous for smuggling and cross-border movement, any Pakistani attempt to secure its borders is treated with anger and disdain. AIG claims it has established peace in Afghanistan and that the environment is ideal for return of refugees. It also wants Pakistan to treat Afghanistan as a sovereign state and concentrate on its own territory to defeat terrorism. Ironically whenever Pakistan’s government proceeds to do exactly what is demanded by the Taliban government, it draws a cold stare from the Taliban leadership.

Pakistan has finally concluded that it is better to treat Afghanistan as a sovereign country and let it treat Pakistan accordingly. Pakistan has also decided to take proper control of its western border by instituting visa-based single entry regime and closing all smuggling routes through fencing and border patrolling. Is there anything wrong with that? Why does one hear then this cacophony of criticism? The reason lies in the interests of mafias that have established an eco-system of economic rents through crime, smuggling and terrorism. These interest groups include Afghanistan-based non-state actors like TTP, Al Qaeda and ETIM and state actors like corrupt border guards and ATT beneficiaries.

A few more facts. Pakistan presently hosts 4 million Afghans. Of them, 1.4 million are registered with UNHCR with which Pakistan and Afghanistan have a trilateral agreement. Around 30% of these refugees live in refugee camps run by UNHCR. There is another category of 0.8 million Afghans holding Afghan Citizenship Cards who are not enjoying the status of refugees as per UN laws but Pakistani government has allowed them to live and work in Pakistan till they are ready to move back. There is a third category of 0.7 to .0.8 million Afghans who came after the US withdrawal in 2021. This category is supposed to be resettled abroad in countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Germany as a recompense for services rendered to these countries during the US occupation of Afghanistan.

There is another category comprising 0.9 million Afghans living in Pakistan without any documents. It is this category that is being deported to Afghanistan. Adequate arrangements have been made to detain these illegal migrants in holding centres and escorted back to Afghanistan in an orderly manner. Pakistan is not a signatory to UN Refugee Convention 1951 and its Additional Protocol 1967, though it has some obligations under international law to prevent their ‘refoulement’. In Pakistan refugees and migrants are registered by UNHCR as well as the Ministry of State and Frontier regions with the help of NGOs. Due to the absence of a domestic law on refugees, Pakistan has yielded asylum granting jurisdiction to UNHCR.

Pakistan should host refugees registered under the prescribed rules and keep them under proper surveillance till their voluntary repatriation or grant of citizenship while showing no leniency in deporting those without documents. Zero tolerance for crime, smuggling and border violations is a national security imperative for Pakistan and should be pursued as one of the top national security objectives.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2023.

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