(Bloomberg) -- Amanullah Mughal has spent the past four decades in Karachi's Malir neighborhood, in a one time refugee camp that is today a bustling informal settlement housing 150,000 people, many fellow Afghans like him.
Rows of concrete houses, some hoisting Pakistani flags, and two police vans mark the entrance of the shanty town. Mughal, 47, says he and many of his neighbors have worked hard to make a life in Pakistan.
He fled his home in Kunduz, Afghanistan as a child during the Soviet Union's invasion in the late 1970s and never returned. Instead, he settled into adulthood in Karachi, a city that provided a relative degree of safety for his blossoming family.
Now, Mughal and many other Afghans in Pakistan face a grim future.
Pakistan announced last month that it is giving undocumented immigrants until Oct. 31 to leave voluntarily or face deportation. Authorities say the evictions are essential to combat a spike in terrorism and to stamp out the smuggling of dollars and commodities. Mughal, his neighbors and human rights groups say the move will upend the lives of over four million Afghans in Pakistan, pushing them back into a country whose economy collapsed after the Taliban took control two years ago.
“Our kids were born here and even don't know where Afghanistan is,” Mughal said. “This is an uncertain situation and nobody knows what to do.”
Lives Upended
Mughal works as a laborer in the local fruit and vegetable market to support his family of 11. He used to have a registration card for Afghan refugees but that has expired, leaving him vulnerable to deportation.
Of the 4.4 million Afghans who live in Pakistan, around 1.73 million are unregistered, according to Pakistan's government. Another 1.3 million Afghan refugees possess these all-important registration cards, according to UN data, giving them temporary justification for staying in Pakistan.
Around one million of these registration cards expired in June and Pakistan has yet to renew the documents, according to Asif Shahzad, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the country.
Mughal's family is one of the unlucky ones. Other Malir residents say the government's abrupt deportation deadline has sent a chill through the neighborhood, giving them little time to make arrangements.
“We came here without any clothes and shelter and they are sending us back in a similar condition,” said Saad, 60, a bearded scavenger who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. “They should give us some time - at least six months so we could prepare.”
Human rights groups have expressed concern. “Pakistani authorities' threats to deport more than one million Afghans puts them at grave risk of being returned to persecution and other abuse,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement earlier this month.
The group said calls for deportation led to an increase in police abuse against Afghans in Pakistan including “harassment, assault, and arbitrary detention.”
“Families living in Afghan refugee camps are leaving Pakistan out of fear,” said Moniza Kakar, a human rights lawyer who has defended Afghans in Karachi courts. “Even the cardholders are leaving.”
Since early September, Kakar said the police in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi have detained more than 1,000 Afghans, many of whom have valid documents. The courts are set to decide whether the detained Afghans will be expelled.
Terrorism Fears
The deportation drive comes amid an uptick in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, which is struggling to get its economy back on track after nearly defaulting earlier this year. It is one of numerous crackdowns initiated by Pakistan's caretaker government ahead of elections, scheduled for the end of January.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, terrorist attacks in Pakistan have increased by 73%, with at least three militant groups claiming responsibility, according to Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies.
According to Pakistan's Interior Minister Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, Afghan nationals carried out 14 out of 24 suicide bomb attacks in the country this year.
Islamabad has called on the Taliban leadership in Kabul to stop militant groups, including its close ally, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, from carrying out attacks in Pakistan.
“They expect two things from the Taliban: crackdown, neutralize, if not, hand them over to Pakistan,” said Abdul Basit, a fellow at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Basit said deportations, which may affect the family members of Taliban leaders living in Pakistan, are a response to the Afghan leadership's failure to control the TTP and other militant groups. “The message to Kabul is clear: this is the price that you'll have to pay.”
The Taliban-run government has slammed the planned deportations, calling the action “heinous” and warning it will harm ties.
“Afghan refugees are not involved in Pakistan's security problems,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for Taliban administration, said in a social media post on Oct. 4. “As long as they leave Pakistan voluntarily, that country should tolerate them.”
Lacking Rules
Pakistan's government says its deportation policy applies to all undocumented foreigners, not just Afghans. In a press conference Thursday, Bugti, the interior minister, said authorities finalized a repatriation plan under which “holding centers” have been set up in provinces where undocumented migrants will be held before eviction.
The plan sets a limit for how much currency Afghan nationals can carry with them and prohibits them from carrying US dollars. “No smuggling will be allowed,” Bugti said. According to state-run Radio Pakistan, more than 59,000 Afghan refugees have so far been repatriated.
Pakistan doesn't have a domestic refugee law and the country is not party to the main international agreement outlining their rights. The United Nations' refugee arm operates within the confines of Pakistan's system and since 2007 has not issued new registration cards, except to family members of those already registered.
Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator, said without legislation, refugee issues often become political. “Refugees have been used to put pressure on any of the Afghan administrations in Kabul,” he said.
He said similar drives have happened in the past. The first under the leadership of military ruler Pervez Musharraf and later by Nawaz Sharif's government. The latter followed a 2015 attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.
An estimated 700,000 Afghans fled to Pakistan after the Taliban takeover, including military and civilian officials from the previous US-supported government. The UN, in an August report, says the Taliban carried out at least 218 “extrajudicial killings” of former government officials and soldiers since they retook power.
Many were encouraged to apply for resettlement programs in the US and Europe but ended up languishing in Pakistan.
The deportation threat is a signal to other countries, said Madiha Afzhal, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Pakistan may use this drive to put pressure on western governments to deal with asylum applications of some of those migrants,” she said.
Pakistan has sought to cut down on cross-border movement by requiring Afghan nationals to enter with a valid passport and visa from November. It's a historic change: Pakistan had allowed Pashtun tribes on either side of the border to pass through with other travel permits.
In Malir, some residents have begun making plans to leave by selling off properties at below-market rates, while others are hoping they can stay put. Many despair at the thought of returning to Afghanistan when the country is reeling under poverty, with one-third of its population suffering from extreme food insecurity.
“How can we go back to Afghanistan, a country where we don't even own a house?” said Dost Mohammad Mughal, 48. “Our houses, businesses, children, the graves of our parents, everything is here.”
--With assistance from Eltaf Najafizada.
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