Pakistan: Who Belongs and Who Gets Forced Out?
For over 40 years, Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees—people who fled successive wars beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and continuing through the chaos unleashed after the United States unlawful invasion of Afghanistan. Before the Arab Spring Revolution, Pakistan hosted over 3 million Afghan refugees, making it the largest refugee-hosting country globally at the time. Since that time, entire generations have been born and raised in Pakistan. They have lived along with us, going to its schools, working in its markets, and building lives that are, in every meaningful sense, Pakistani.
However, starting in September 2023, Pakistan has initiated a massive expulsion of these Afghan refugees. Let’s be clear: this is not just policy—it is hypocrisy. The state claims it can no longer bear the burden. It points to an economic crisis, security threats, and undocumented migration. In some part, the Afghans are also blamed for creating business monopolies in trade and logistics, which the ‘locals’ cite has taken away their jobs.
But burdens do not exist in a vacuum. Pakistan was not merely a passive neighbor to Afghanistan’s wars; it was an active participant in shaping them. From backing militant proxies to entangling itself in Afghanistan’s internal politics, Pakistan helped sustain the very instability that forced millions to flee and the cross-border fighting to wipe out militant hideouts – all of which has given Pakistan its title of a regional hegemonic power.
Since the October 2025 bombing of militant hideouts across the Pak-Afghan border, the Pakistan Army has further exacerbated the ongoing crisis. The current expulsion campaign—aimed largely at undocumented Afghans—is being carried out with a speed and indifference that strips away any pretense of humanitarian concern. Families who have spent decades here are being uprooted in days. People who have never set foot in Afghanistan are being dumped across a border into a country on the brink of collapse.
And for what? To project control? To deflect from internal failures? To turn one of the most vulnerable populations in the region into a convenient scapegoat? Organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have long maintained that refugee returns must be voluntary, safe, and dignified. This is none of those things. It is coercion dressed up as policy.
Yes, the international community has failed. Countries far wealthier than Pakistan—many of which played direct roles in Afghanistan’s destruction—have taken in only a fraction of the refugees. But Pakistan’s moral standing does not improve by racing them to the bottom. Expelling Afghans who have lived here for generations is not an act of sovereignty—it is an admission of moral bankruptcy.
Threats emanating from militancy (a brotherhood across the border on both sides) are potent and need to be dealt with in a manner that doesn’t threaten the civilian population. Pakistan’s Deep State, with remarkable intelligence, should be able to target militants and expel them, discriminately and specifically.
Especially now that Pakistan has emerged as a strategic regional mediator for the ongoing Iran War, it can’t win on this position while at the same time treating Afghans and the ‘locals’ inhumanely. Its credibility can’t be built by abandoning its own people. It’s no longer a question of hosting refugees but expelling people who are born Pakistanis. Maybe it is a question of revising immigration policies and/or fighting other-ism of a people Pakistan has itself worked to displace. Those concerned should perhaps revisit Pakistan’s creation, which came into being following a mass migration of people fleeing religious, economic, and sociopolitical persecution.
For decades, Pakistan rightly pointed to its generosity in hosting Afghan refugees. That claim now rings hollow. Because generosity is not defined by how you act when it is easy—it is defined by how you act when it is difficult. And right now, Pakistan is choosing to fail that test.
