NA Standing Committee expresses concern over illegal Afghan immigrants

ISLAMABAD: The Standing Committee of the National Assembly on States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) showed its concerns over the illegal influx of Afghan nationals in Pakistan, especially regime change in Afghanistan.

The committee further said that the free moment of unregistered Afghan nationals and setting up makeshift installs of illegal or smuggled items at major business places of the big cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, without paying taxes to the government. It recommended that the concerned departments of all the provinces should be invited in the next meeting to discuss the issue of illegal Afghan immigrants, living mostly in urban areas of Pakistan and urged to chalk-out a mechanism to stop them in the border areas.

Additional secretary, Ministry of SAFRON, informed that Pakistan generously hosting millions of Afghan nationals for the last four decades, further added that currently, there were three categories of Afghan nationals living in Pakistan, including 1.4 million with Proof of Registration (POR) cards, 840,000 with Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) and estimated by various agencies 0.7 million Afghans were living in Pakistan without any proper documents.

The commissioner on Afghan Refugees also shared the issues of repatriation of the Afghan refugees, including the insufficient livelihood opportunities and non-conducive environment of living in Afghanistan. He further said the process of repatriation of Afghan refugees remained slow even after the withdrawal of US-NATO forces from warring country.