Afghans in Pakistan awaiting U.S. resettlement are caught in a treacherous limbo

ISLAMABAD — Round noon one current Wednesday, in a colorless condo block on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital, neighbors rushed to warn one another they’d seen police close by. The constructing is inhabited nearly fully by Afghan households, and the alarm despatched youngsters who have been taking part in within the hallway dashing into their residences. A girl discreetly pulled her door shut, letting a neighbor padlock it from the surface. One other urged guests to come back in and instructed them to remain quiet.

A number of minutes later, phrase unfold that the coast was clear. Doorways have been unlocked and folks reemerged from hiding. However for a lot of Afghans like these, who fled throughout the border to Pakistan after the Taliban took energy in August 2021, now could be an particularly precarious time. The Trump administration has halted the U.S. refugee program, Pakistan needs them out, and their lives could also be in danger in the event that they return to their very own nation.

Pakistan issued an inside directive in late January ordering the deportation of Afghans awaiting resettlement to 3rd international locations if their instances aren’t processed by March 31, in response to an official doc from the prime minister’s workplace shared by a Pakistani official and reviewed by NPR. The official didn’t wish to be recognized as a result of he was not approved to share the doc, which specifies that “no public announcements shall be made” concerning the new coverage.

Amongst these liable to deportation are tens of hundreds of Afghans who have been ready in Pakistan for choices about their U.S. resettlement purposes when President Trump issued his govt order in January suspending the U.S. refugee program. The order pauses the resettlement course of accountable for vetting Afghans and different refugees who search to relocate legally to the US.

The brand new Pakistani and U.S. orders have converged to make these Afghans’ already unsure prospects extra tenuous than ever. Even earlier than these orders have been issued, Amnesty Worldwide was criticizing Pakistani authorities for “police night raids, harassment and arbitrary detention of hundreds of Afghan refugees, including women and children, in the capital city.” It says greater than 800 Afghans have been detained in Islamabad within the first week of January alone.

A slow-moving course of and a current crackdown

These most in limbo are Afghans who have been affiliated with the US and who fled to Pakistan after the Taliban took over in August 2021. Early on, the Taliban promised amnesty for former Afghan authorities officers and people who labored with Western forces — however the pledge hasn’t been revered and plenty of Afghans in these teams most popular to take no possibilities.

They embrace a 38-year-old former worker of Afghanistan’s Protection Ministry, who requested anonymity for concern of Taliban reprisal after working carefully with U.S. colleagues for greater than a decade. He relocated to Pakistan along with his household in early 2022 so their resettlement software might transfer ahead from a 3rd nation, as required.

He anticipated resettlement to be a speedy course of, partly as a result of he was referred to the refugee admissions program by a U.S. authorities worker. Now, three years later, he has spent all his financial savings and should borrow cash from pals and family to get by. He can not get a Pakistani work allow. “I’m somehow stuck in life. I can’t make a decision about my days, weeks and months,” he stated. “These things are ruining me, to be honest.”

An Afghan couple of their 50s, whom NPR is just not naming as a result of they lack Pakistani visas and stay susceptible to arrest and deportation, are discovering the ready sport particularly agonizing. Their resettlement case was nonetheless in course of when Trump issued his govt order. Their daughter lives within the U.S. and works with a wing of the U.S. authorities dealing with the relocation of Afghans, however the Trump administration is taking steps to shut the workplace she works for — and intervening of their case was by no means an choice anyway.

U.S. resettlement candidates in Pakistan had already been elevating the alarm a couple of slow-moving course of. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad solely started processing Afghan refugee instances in the summertime of 2023, and a resettlement assist heart underneath the U.N.’s Worldwide Group of Migration grew to become operational in April 2024, in response to a U.S. Embassy official who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the Afghan resettlement challenge with the Pakistani authorities. The embassy couldn’t present a determine for the variety of Afghan resettlement instances pending in 2025.

After an uptick in terrorist assaults two years in the past, Pakistan started cracking down on migrants with out authorized standing. The federal government introduced what it known as its Unlawful Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan to deport migrants missing documentation in October 2023, after which began deporting Afghans en masse later that very same 12 months, vowing to return anybody who didn’t have the requisite paperwork. The United Nations Refugee Company reported that 9,000 have been deported from Pakistan to Afghanistan in 2024, with 1,200 deportations in December alone. That very same 12 months, 10,500 Afghans have been arrested or detained.

In all, 813,000 Afghans in Pakistan made a return to Afghanistan between October 2023 and mid-January 2025, in response to the company.

A whole bunch of hundreds had come to Pakistan after the 2021 Taliban takeover, some with the only objective of making use of for resettlement elsewhere. This introduced a problem that Pakistani officers say the nation was unprepared to deal with. Though Pakistan has had loads of expertise within the final half-century taking in Afghan refugees, the bulk didn’t arrive for the aim of a stopover on their method elsewhere.

In relation to processing resettlement candidates, “We never had any systems in place,” explains Abbas Khan, commissioner for Afghan refugees in Islamabad. “We never had such a big number of refugees who would transit through Pakistan.”  

Pakistan doesn’t have a home legislation to supply a framework for refugee claims and the nation has dealt with Afghan arrivals over the previous 4 a long time on an advert hoc foundation. Pakistan has held two workouts since 2006 to register Afghan refugees and supply them with short-term residence paperwork, the newest ending in 2018. 

Pakistan is particularly ordering Afghans out of Islamabad

Most Afghans see no risk of a authorized future in Pakistan — particularly within the capital, Islamabad.

Late final 12 months, Pakistan’s Inside Minister Mohsin Naqvi introduced that no Afghans can be allowed to reside in Islamabad with out permission from the federal government.

Earlier than this, the U.S. gave Pakistani authorities the names of round 24,000 Afghans in the US resettlement pipeline and requested they not be deported, in response to Mumtaz Baloch, former spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs.

Many Afghans in search of resettlement select to remain in or close to the capital for comfort and proximity to overseas embassies and Pakistani authorities workplaces.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s new directive requires resettlement candidates to be moved out of Islamabad and neighboring Rawalpindi by the top of March. It does not specify whether or not they’ll be allowed to settle elsewhere in Pakistan.

Final month, UNHCR and the IOM in Pakistan issued a joint assertion expressing their concern concerning the relocation of Afghans from Islamabad and in search of readability from the federal government concerning the particulars of the plan. 

Afghans have navigated a tenuous existence in Pakistan for many years

Pakistan has a protracted historical past of accepting Afghan refugees, who started arriving in enormous numbers greater than 40 years in the past. Thousands and thousands of Afghans crossed the border through the Soviet struggle of their nation, the civil struggle that adopted within the early Nineteen Nineties and through the first interval of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001. Many have stayed for generations.

However Pakistani authorities even have made it clear for years that they want the Afghans to depart. In 2000, Pakistan shut its border with Afghanistan altogether to try to stem the movement. Harassment, discrimination and persecution of Afghans is commonplace.

Within the neighborhood outdoors Islamabad, some Afghans awaiting resettlement had cleared all the mandatory rounds of U.S. interviews and have been solely awaiting a flight to the US when President Trump issued his govt order.
 
Maiwand Alami Afghan, the chief of a local people group for Afghans, says he has acquired tons of of calls and messages from frantic Afghans attempting to know what the order means for his or her instances. He urges persistence and religion.  

“Hopefully President Trump’s mind will be changed,” he says. “We should wait. This is the only way.”

At the very least one authorized problem is within the works in opposition to the brand new govt order, and a few Republican lawmakers have made clear they assist an exception for Afghans who helped the U.S. However late final month, talking to CBS Information’ Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan about Afghan refugees awaiting admission to the U.S., Vice President Vance referred to vetting and security considerations when pressed on Afghan refugee resettlement.

Beneath former President Joe Biden, the US vowed to prioritize the safety of Afghan refugees — together with those that labored instantly with U.S. forces — by means of the Operation Allies Welcome program. Biden approved the admission of as much as 125,000 refugees from around the globe for 2025, with 30,000 to 45,000 from South Asia and the Close to East. By Dec. 31, 2024, the US additionally had a quota of 38,500 Particular Immigrant Visas for Afghans who labored instantly with U.S. forces.

The troublesome limbo continues

Trump’s new govt order will possible pressure some Afghans to decide on between staying in Pakistan illegally or returning to Afghanistan, the place they concern for his or her lives with the Taliban in energy.  

This was the selection confronting a former worker of a U.S.-supported tribunal that handled terrorism and nationwide safety instances. He didn’t wish to be named for concern of Taliban reprisal.

His U.S. resettlement case was denied in December. Interesting the choice would have meant hiring a lawyer, which he couldn’t afford. “I never imagined such an issue would arise for me,” he stated. “From the time we received the denial, we were in shock.” However he had determined to stay in Pakistan.

Final month, he and his spouse and youngsters have been arrested from their constructing on the outskirts of Islamabad and deported again throughout the Torkham border to Afghanistan, the place they’re now in hiding. 

In the meantime, the previous Afghan Division Ministry worker and his household have resigned themselves to ready. He worries about his youngsters and two college-age sisters being out of college — Afghan youngsters awaiting resettlement can not register to attend Pakistani government-run colleges and he cannot afford personal faculty charges. He feels drained by the on a regular basis logistics of his case, together with navigating the paperwork of Afghan passport and Pakistani visa renewals.

The suspension of the U.S. refugee program feels private, he says — largely as a result of he hadn’t imagined dwelling anyplace else.

“I grew up with the American system,” he stated. “Even if I don’t go to the U.S., I feel myself an American.”