Pakistani’s Federal Cabinet has extended the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards of nearly 1.5 million Afghan refugees for one year.
The approval extension will be available until June 30, 2025. However, Pakistani’s Foreign Ministry said its plans to expel all illegal foreigners continue after the campaign launched in October 2023, VisaGuide.World reports.
The federal cabinet approved a one-year extension of the validity of POR (Proof of Registration) cards of 1.45 million Afghan refugees. Their PoR cards have been expired on June 30, 2024. The extension has been granted until June 30, 2025.
As Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently revealed, over the past three years, only 9,000 out of 70,000 Afghans who had worked for the United States and allies before the collapse of the former government — had been sent to a third country.
Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan has taken in millions of Afghan refugees. The latest influx began in August 2021 when the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, prompting an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans to seek refuge in neighboring Pakistan.
Over 2.4 Million Afghans Currently Staying in Pakistan
Government data shows that Pakistan currently hosts nearly 2.5 million Afghans, with nearly 2.4 million holding some form of legal documentation. Of this total, almost 1.5 million have a UNHCR proof of residence card and another 800,000 hold an Afghan Citizenship Card (ACC).
An official at the Afghan Commissionerate, the government agency responsible for Afghan refugees in the country, stated that more than 600,000 refugees have returned to Afghanistan to date, while more than 30,000 have been deported and the rest have returned voluntarily.
Pakistani media have also reported that since the passage of the bill on the deportation of Afghan migrants in November last year, approximately half a million migrants have been repatriated to Afghanistan.
1 Million Afgan Refugees Expected to Deport from Pakistan
In the upcoming second phase of deportations, Pakistani media estimates that nearly one million Afghan immigrants will be deported from Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Interim Prime Minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, said more than 250,000 Afghan individuals had voluntarily returned home since his administration announced plans to deport undocumented immigrants.
UNHCR statistics show that around 2.18 million Afghan migrants reside in Pakistan, including 1.3 million registered refugees holding UNHCR cards. Additionally, another 880,000 refugees received temporary residence permits after registration in 2017.