Pakistan has begun cracking down on illegal immigration by making arrests and bulldozing immigrant facilities, BBC reports, in an attempt to expel around 1.7 million undocumented foreigners, mostly from Afghanistan.
While over 200,000 have returned to Afghanistan in the past couple months, many have refused to go and thousands will likely be resettled in the UK due to its Afghan resettlement schemes.
The immigrants were previously given warning that they had to evacuate Pakistan by November 1 or face deportation. However, in a video originally published by BBC, an Afghan immigrant can be heard saying “We have been living here for 12 years and we did not receive any notice.”
Nazak Mir continued that “is is cold” and “snowing” in Afghanistan and that he did not want to return, stating “there’s nothing for us there.”
Another stated that his family had been living in the immigrant facility for over 30 years.
The Pakistani government has said that the first wave of deportations will target illegal immigrants without any documentation. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHR) has assured that action will not be taken against those with refugee cards.
Around 21,000 Afghan immigrants have already been resettled after around 24,600 arrived in the UK from Afghanistan as of March 2023.
The first of the resettlement schemes, Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) established in April of 2021, gave Afghans who worked for the British military and UK government the opportunity to apply to settle permanently in the UK.
Then, in January 2022, the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme allowed 20,000 immigrants to settle in the UK, focusing on women and children attempting to escape from the Taliban as well as their immediate family members.
Local councils in the UK have been allocated funding packages of £20,520 per immigrant over three years as part of an initiative called “Operation Warm Welcome.”
