ISLAMABAD: Balochistan Caretaker Information Minister Jan Achakzai said on Wednesday Pakistan would not take action against or deport Afghan nationals who had Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) or Proof of Registration (PoR) documents, as a Nov. 1 deadline for all illegal immigrants to leave inches closer.

Grappling with an economic crisis and a sharp rise in terror attacks, Pakistan’s government is increasingly anxious about the presence of Afghans in the country and announced last week that all illegal immigrants had to leave Pakistan by Nov. 1 or face deportation. 

The decision is likely to disproportionately hit Afghans, who have poured into Pakistan in the millions to escape war and economic crisis since the Soviet war. 

The PoR is an identity card for Afghan refugees that entitles them to remain in Pakistan legally and is issued by Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). PoRs are issued to Afghan refugees after they are registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

The ACC is also an identity document issued by NADRA. Afghan nationals who do not hold either of the two documents are considered illegal immigrants.

When Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti announced the Nov. 1 deadline last week, he did not specify if Afghans who possessed valid ID documents would also be targeted, creating panic and fear among those who hold PoRs and ACCs.

“Those people who have the UNHCR cards [PoR] or have documents of Afghan residency [ACC], who number around 1.7 million in Pakistan, they are not being targeted, nor will any action be taken against taken,” Achakzai told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday. 

“Those people who are without documents, whom we call aliens, whether they are Afghans or from other countries, and third category are those who have done identify theft, who have changed their names or acquired [fake] documents, or compromised Pakistani institutions or managed the NADRA system to create IDs for themselves, action will be taken against them and they will be arrested and sent back to the Afghanistan or whatever country they belong to.”

“The campaign against illegal immigrants will continue in a more robust manner,” Achakzai said. “There are approximately 24 days left in the deadline [to Nov. 1].”

Pakistani officials say hundreds of thousands of Afghans have traveled to Pakistan since foreign forces left Afghanistan and the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021. Even before then, Pakistan hosted some 1.5 million registered refugees, one of the largest such populations in the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency. 

More than a million others are estimated to live in Pakistan unregistered.