Editorial
Once again, the Ministry of Interior, Government of Pakistan issued a directive to immediately arrest any Afghan national “found residing in Pakistan without a valid visa” from July 10.
This is not the first time that the government has announced strict measures to send illegal Afghans back to their home, as since 2023 authorities have been trying to do so, while news reports confirm that thousands of Afghans illegally obtained Pakistani CNICs with the alleged help of provincial as well as federal authorities such as NADRA. Several officials have been arrested, but this practice has remained in the system. It is alleged that a big chunk of even the commercial hub of the capital, Islamabad’s Blue Area, is owned by Afghans through ‘legal documentation’. Similar stories come from Lahore’s Orega Centre, Liberty Market, Shah Alam Market, Ichra, and other commercial parts of the provincial capital of Punjab. The situation is the same in Karachi and even Faisalabad.
Since it is difficult to differentiate between Afghans and Pakistani Pashtuns, therefore finding Afghans is like finding a needle in a haystack. Moreover, several Afghans use the documents of their relatives who are bona fide Pakistanis to buy property and also enter into their family tree, thereby easily obtaining CNICs. In Punjab, there were reports that Patwar Khanas are providing Fards (documents of ownership of land) to Afghans, providing them legal documents showing that they are Pakistanis owning property for decades (before 1976). In this situation, any notification to find and send back illegal Afghans may not work as it should.
Moreover, PTI’s friendly attitude towards Afghans and providing them opportunities to fix their documentation to obtain legal cover to stay in Pakistan adds more difficulties for security agencies working in KP. In several public videos, CM Sohail Afridi could be seen stating that “Afghans are our brothers” and that the district administration should help them fix their documentation to keep staying in Pakistan.
Illegal Afghans, with the alleged help of their Pakistani relatives, are spread from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the seashore of Karachi, but rich illegal Afghans are concentrated in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Swat, and Mansehra. There are unconfirmed reports that Afghans have obtained leases of several orchards and motels in the Mansehra Division through the documentation of their relatives, but they live and reside in these leased properties.
Now, the government has once again given a deadline for illegal Afghans to leave the country, as the notification stated:
“With effect from July 10, 2026, any Afghan national found residing in Pakistan without a valid visa shall be arrested immediately.”
The directive also demanded that the district administration furnish a daily report to the ministry, commencing July 11, 2026, detailing the “number of Afghan nationals found without valid visas, the action taken against them, and their present status.”
Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan since the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s, and thousands arrived after the return of the Taliban government in 2021. A deportation drive first launched in 2023 was renewed in April last year when the government rescinded hundreds of thousands of residence permits for Afghans, warning them of arrest if they did not leave.
Last year alone, over a million Afghan nationals were deported by Pakistan out of more than two million residing in the country illegally. Pakistan deported a total of 1,155,221 Afghan nationals in 2025. The repatriated Afghans included 163,429 Proof of Registration (PoR) card holders, 74,943 Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders, 509,671 undocumented individuals, and 407,178 voluntary returnees.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the repatriations appear to have picked up pace in the current year, with nearly 150,000 Afghans returning home from Pakistan and Iran by mid-February 2026. These returns added to the 5.4 million Afghans who have gone back to Afghanistan from the same two neighbouring countries since October 2023.
Reports suggest that Afghans are involved in terrorist acts in Pakistan, and hundreds of them have been killed in encounters with security forces since 2006. However, over the last 20 years, authorities have been unable to send them back to Afghanistan due to loopholes within the system and the overt support of PTI, which has been ruling KP since 2013.
The mess created by the civil administration has had to be cleaned up by the security forces, but this practice continues, and black sheep within sensitive departments such as NADRA continue to help Afghans obtain Pakistani nationality.
Pakistan has lost over one hundred thousand innocent civilians and men in uniform in terror attacks during the last 20 years, but officials within the civil administration continue to help Afghans obtain legal protection. Nothing has changed so far except the increasing martyrdom of men in uniform, who sacrifice their lives for a better future for their motherland.
