When the Taliban retook Afghanistan after our ignominious exit in August of 2021, over one million fled into neighboring Pakistan. Who would blame them? Life in Afghanistan is already hell. It’s made worse by the re-emergence of a religious dictatorship. For nearly 1.7 million Afghan refugees who entered the country illegally, the Pakistani government’s message to them was blunt and straightforward: get out.
Over the weekend, Pakistani authorities began the long process of deporting 1.7 million Afghan refugees. Government officials instructed landlords to refuse to shelter these illegal immigrants. Last month, Pakistan gave a hard November 1 vacate deadline for the illegal Afghans. Even in Pakistan, they value border integrity and security, though these refugees have legitimate asylum status.
Unlike the United States immigration issue, where we’re awash in bogus asylum claims, many of these Afghan illegals being deported back to Afghanistan will either be executed or face severe punishment from the Taliban, especially the women and girls who fled. Here, we have people claiming asylum because their country is an economic wreck, among other things. That’s not a legitimate claim. Fear of dying at the hands of an authoritarian theocratic government is something else (via CBS News):
Pakistan has begun mass deportation of undocumented Afghans residing in the country illegally, including thousands of people who escaped the Taliban's rule and who are at risk of persecution at home after the country fell to the Taliban two years ago following the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
In October, the Pakistani government gave 1.7 million Afghan refugees living in the country until Nov. 1 to leave voluntarily or face arrest and forced deportation. Police also warned landlords to avoid renting homes for undocumented refugees.
"Today, we said goodbye to 64 Afghan nationals as they began their journey back home." Pakistan's interior minister tweeted, along with a video of a group of Afghans boarding a bus, adding, "This action is a testament to Pakistan's determination to repatriate any individuals residing in the country without proper documentation."
Videos shared on social media show bulldozers leveling to the ground mud-made houses of Afghan refugees while women, men, and children watch in despair. Many were born, raised, got married and had their children in the same village that was now being destroyed.
... thousands of poor and exhausted refugees and their families flocked to the borders, fearing the Pakistani government's detention and forced deportation as the Nov. 1 deadline passed. A photo of an Afghan child tied with a rope behind a moving truck while waving went viral, showing the tragedy of a refugee's life.
[…]
Those who received deportation notices included some of the most vulnerable people, including women's rights activists, musicians, and people who worked for the U.S.-backed government in Kabul before the Taliban takeover in 2021.
The deportation order "is a death sentence for them," Lanny Cordola, an American musician, told CBS News in a phone interview from Pakistan. "It feels like we're living this nightmare again — (a) variation of it."
A 62-year-old guitarist, songwriter and producer from Los Angeles, Cordola is a teacher and self-appointed guardian of nearly 30 street girls from Afghanistan. The girls, aged between 6 and 19, come from the most poverty-stricken families, and some lost their parents at a young age. In 2014, he started teaching the girls to play guitar as they sold clean tissues, books and other items on the streets of Kabul to support their families.
[…]
"There are some locals that are running around that have come to two of the girl's houses, threaten them and harass them, and insulted them, calling them dirty Afghans," Cordola told CBS News. "It's quite alarming, and I have them in hiding right now as I'm trying to scramble through all this."
"If Taliban find out that these girls have been with an American learning music and playing music with westerners, they have no problem killing musicians. They have no problem killing girls or marrying them off to Taliban. it would be an utter disaster for them." said Cordola.
The Taliban has banned music in Afghanistan, including in wedding halls, and punished anyone playing or singing.
Still, I doubt the progressive Left will hold rallies and denounce Islamabad for having a heartless immigration policy. We’re the ones who put kids in cages, though that was Obama before Trump. As for the plight of these people, well, ask Joe Biden, who decided to trade this war for another quagmire in Ukraine.
