UN agencies raise alarm over Pakistan’s move to deport thousands of Afghans waiting to go to the US

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The U.N. refugees and migration agencies on Wednesday expressed their concern over Pakistan’s decision to deport thousands of Afghan refugees awaiting relocation to the United States and elsewhere.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration in a statement said they were seeking clarification from Pakistan, which said last week it would deport the refugees back to Afghanistan unless their cases were processed quickly by the countries that had agreed to take them in.

About 20,000 Afghans were approved for resettlement in the U.S. under a program that helps people at risk because of their work with the American government, media, aid agencies and rights groups. They were among tens of thousands of Afghans who fled to neighboring Pakistan after their country fell to the Taliban in 2021.

However, they were left in limbo after President Donald Trump paused U.S. refugee programs last month.

“A UNHCR-issued non-return advisory has been in place since 2021, calling for a suspension of forced returns of Afghan nationals from any country regardless of their status,” the joint UNHCR-IOM statement said.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last week gave the green light to evict Afghans without papers from the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi before March 31, in preparation for deportation if they were not relocated to their host countries.

UNHCR and IOM said they are especially concerned for Afghan nationals who face a risk of harm upon return, such as ethnic and religious minorities, women and girls, journalists, human rights activists, and members of artistic professions like musicians and others.

It said since Jan. 1, 2025, an uptick in arrests of Afghan nationals in