Legal presence of Afghan refugees in Pakistan; Challenges and obstacles of visa extension

Report: Obeid Elahi

Based on the latest report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, at least 600,000 Afghan citizens have entered Pakistan through the Torkham and Chaman border crossings using Pakistani visas. Asylum seekers have traveled to this country to process their immigration cases in Western countries, especially Europe and America.

On the one hand, the prolongation of the process of examining the immigration files of Afghan refugees by the western countries that failed to fulfill their promises to transfer these asylum seekers on time, and on the other two; The deadline set by the interim government of Pakistan for the departure of illegal citizens from the country, which ended on November 1, 2023, has created many problems due to the legal presence of these asylum seekers in Pakistan.

Majid Rostami (pseudonym) is one of these asylum seekers in Islamabad, Pakistan, who has been traveling to Pakistan for the past two years with his wife and five children, receiving a medical visa (the most available Pakistani visa in Afghanistan) to go through the process of his immigration case to America. has done.

I found him half a kilometer from the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan, in the Red Zone of Islamabad, where you can find a large number of shops where a number of people are sitting in front of computer systems and are busy registering the application for the extension of the residence visa of citizens, and you can easily talk to them about Discuss the conditions and illegal fees you have to pay to extend your stay.

Majid Rostami says that after the expiration of his and his family members' visas, which is usually 60 days, he had to pay 49,000 Pakistani kaldars (7,000 kaldars for each visa) to the commissioners to register an application to extend his legal stay in Pakistan, and after that has received the sheet which is called (Trecking ID) in the term.

While the tariff of the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan for registering a visa extension request is 20 US dollars, which is less than 6 thousand Pakistani kaldars, but these requests should be registered by the commissioners of this field based on the pre-arranged plans; Which of course comes with extras.

According to him, this is only the first step to extend his legal stay in Pakistan, and he should wait at least one month (30 days) for the necessary investigations by the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan to accept or reject his request to extend his legal visa in Pakistan. to be

He claims that the acceptance of the extension of the legal visa period, which is three months for medical visas and six months for family visit visas, has been determined by the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan, will never be obtained in a normal way and without paying bribes. .

Rostami says that at the end of one month from the registration of the visa extension request, he must pay a bribe between 25 and 30 thousand Pakistani kaldars through the commissioners of this field, in order to receive a three-month (90 days) extension of stay in Pakistan, otherwise; He receives the rejection of the extension of his residence request, and then he has to deal with the Pakistani police, who are trying to deport illegal immigrants from this country.

According to him, this cycle of giving money and buying time is repeated every three months and he is obliged to buy his legal three-month stay in Pakistan for the amount of 37 thousand Pakistani koldars, which for a family of seven people, 259 thousand Pakistani koldars, which is nearly one thousand US dollars. It is true that only twenty dollars from each visa is legally deposited into the bank account of the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan, and the rest goes into the pockets of the commissioners and delinquent agents of the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan.

This is not the only illegal cost that the asylum seekers under the threat of the Taliban have to pay in Pakistan in order to get an extension of their stay, they have to pay during the 30-day period when they are waiting to receive an answer of approval or rejection of their request for an extension of their stay from the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan, sometimes with stops and inspections or a door-to-door attempt by the police. Pakistan does not accept the Turking ID card as a legal residence document.

Nabiullah (pseudonym), an asylum seeker with an immigration case in the United States, says that for the past ten months, he has rented a house in a town on the outskirts of Islamabad where most of the Afghan citizens live, and he only goes out of this town on Sundays to buy food for the week. He goes to the Sunday market (day market) near his residence.

He says that during one of the 30-day periods when he was waiting for the confirmation of the extension of his stay, he came across a Pakistani police checkpoint and was forced to pay a bribe of 10,000 kaldars to get out of the clutches of the police.

He claimed that the police threatened him that if he didn't pay them, they would take him to the local police station and send him to court on charges of not having a legal visa and carrying drugs.

Setara Hashmi (pseudonym) is another Afghan female refugee and a former employee of a foreign institution in Afghanistan who came to Pakistan fifteen months ago with her mother.

He says that at night, when the police came to the gate of his apartment in the (E-11) area of ​​Islamabad, despite having a Turking ID, he had to pay a bribe of 25,000 kaldars to the police through the mediation of the building manager, who is a Pakistani businessman. do not arrest

Pakistani police inspections, which mostly take place at night, do not always end well with the payment of bribes, and a number of Afghan refugees have experienced more difficult conditions after the Pakistani government's deadline for deporting Afghan refugees from this country has expired.

Shirzad Rahimi (pseudonym), an Afghan asylum seeker who is waiting for his immigration case to Canada, after the expiration of the legal period of his visa in Pakistan, he applied for an extension of his visa. He was arrested from his home on November 4 of this year and transferred to the detention center for illegal immigrants newly established by the Pakistani police.

He says that two days after he was arrested by the police, he was taken to Torkham border crossing and deported to Afghanistan along with hundreds of others.

Shirzad, who is currently in Islamabad, adds that he spent two nights in Jalalabad – He passed through Afghanistan and upon finding human trafficking, he crossed the border again to Pakistan after paying one hundred and fifty thousand Pakistani kaldars (five hundred US dollars).

He says that he has now been able to get a six-month stay on his previous visa (family visit) by paying another 30,000 kaldars to the commissioners and is still waiting for his immigration case from Canada.

Although the GHR reporter went to the Ministry of Interior of Pakistan, he did not succeed in talking with the officials of this ministry, but a Pakistani police source, who did not want to be named, said verbally that the government of Pakistan has the right to approve or reject the request for the extension of the medical visa and Or he reserves for himself the family visits that Afghan citizens have mostly received during the previous two years based on international and domestic laws.

He stated that he was unaware of the receipt of cash from the commissioners, which would lead to the approval of the visa extension of these asylum seekers.

Meanwhile, a number of Afghan asylum seekers living in Pakistan who are waiting for their immigration cases from the United States of America, Canada and Australia, confirm that the holders of immigration cases in the United States on November 1, 2023 and the holders of immigration cases in Australia and Canada On December 1 of this year, they received the letter of protection from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of these countries via email.

(photo of Australian protection letter)

In these protection letters, by mentioning the names and details of the immigration file holders, the Pakistani police have been requested to consider this document, to refrain from arresting and deporting these asylum seekers, and if necessary, to write to the email address mentioned in the document. .

Meanwhile, several Afghan women and men who have received this letter claimed that by showing these letters of protection from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United States and Canada to the Pakistani police, they were not accepted by the police and the police only asked them for a valid Pakistani visa. has done.

At the same time, Afghan refugees who have come to Pakistan have registered to receive protection from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to protect themselves from the police of this country.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan, due to the increase in the number of asylum seekers who refer to this commission, from internal countries such as Sharp:

(Society for Human Rights and Prisoners’ Aid (SHARP-Pakistan) has received help to do the first stage of registration of these asylum seekers.

Afghan refugees who have come to Pakistan in the last two years and three months say that when they called the numbers announced by Sharp's office, they received an appointment with an interval of two to six months, which seems like a long time.

Farida (pseudonym) is an Afghan refugee who has been living in Islamabad with her husband since October 2022. He, whose mother and sisters live in Canada, is trying to go to that country through family reunification, and this is not possible unless he receives a card from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, from one of the offices of this commissioner in the neighboring countries of Afghanistan.

Faridah says that in the first days of her arrival in Pakistan, she managed to pass the first interview with Sharp's office by paying fifteen thousand Pakistani kaldars to a commission worker.

Meanwhile, the officials of the Sharp office in Pakistan have always said that the services of this office are free and have asked the clients to report violations by calling the numbers announced by this office.

But Farideh says that she agreed to pay this amount in order to speed up her work and process her case.

He adds that for the past one year and one month, he has been waiting for a second call from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan so that he can get the card of this commission.

Farideh and her husband, who, according to the law of the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Department, need to receive a card from this commissariat in order to start the process of their immigration case, say that in the last one year and one month, they have tried hard to get this card through illegal methods. but they claim that the amount announced to them was more than two thousand US dollars to arrange an interview with the officer of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan and to discuss their problem.

He says that 10 days ago, they were called by this commissariat to come to this commissariat for an interview.

He adds that when he raised the issue of the need for the UNHCR card with the interviewing officer, the officer's answer was that since two years, the government of Pakistan has not allowed the distribution of the card by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the asylum seekers, and they refuse to give it. This card is excused.

At the same time, Sharp's office and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, after receiving interviews with refugees who seek the protection of this commission, on small sheets that in many cases do not even mention the name of the interviewee, simply Writing a register number is enough, and these papers, which are called (Sharp token and UNHCR token), have no validity or value in the eyes of the police.

When I inquired about the couple's latest decision to join their families in Canada, Farida stated that after a year and three months in Pakistan, which had no positive outcome for their immigration case and was only a waste of their time and money, They are trying to find a commission agent to obtain a visa for Tajikistan, so that they may be able to obtain the necessary card from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in that country to go through the process of their immigration case.