Mohammed, a 41-year-old undocumented Afghan migrant, has for months been confined to the non-public backyard close to Tehran the place he works as a caretaker, too afraid of detention and deportation by Iran’s police to even exit for a haircut.
“My spouse does all of the purchasing. My two sons are anxious when going to high school,” stated the daddy of 4, who didn’t need to give his full title.
“I can’t dwell in Afghanistan underneath the Taliban,” stated Mohammed, who doesn’t have a checking account and lives in a constructing on the backyard grounds. “My life will likely be in danger. To not point out there will likely be no job, no prospects and household to care for.”
Mohammed is one in all what Iranian authorities say was greater than 2mn Afghans who crossed the border into the nation after the Taliban took energy in Afghanistan in 2021 — including to the numerous extra who had entered in latest many years.
Tehran now says it plans to ship them again. With the nation grinding by means of a extreme financial disaster and its leaders grappling with an more and more bitter public, the Islamic republic’s leaders have vowed to speed up mass deportations.
Nader Yarahmadi, an adviser to the inside minister, claimed that greater than 1.2mn Afghans had already been deported between March 2024 and March 2025.
Iran’s international minister Abbas Araghchi, who visited Kabul this 12 months, stated that the deportations had been co-ordinated with the Taliban and can be “gradual and dignified”.
“Afghanistan must correctly admit and reintegrate them,” he stated not too long ago. “We don’t need the return of Afghans to show right into a social disaster for both nation. What’s necessary to us is to work out a wise regional strategy to cope with the state of affairs.”
Iran is following within the footsteps of neighbouring Pakistan, which has since 2023 expelled tons of of hundreds of Afghan refugees again into the Taliban-controlled nation, sparking a global outcry.
Iran says that it has accommodated a disproportionate share of refugees from Afghanistan fleeing many years of battle within the nation.
UN refugee company UNHCR estimated there have been about 3.8mn forcibly displaced individuals of assorted statuses in Iran in 2024, making it the world’s largest refugee-hosting nation. However Iran says the true variety of Afghans current, with and with out authorized standing, is simply over 6mn. This determine consists of these born in Iran.
The Islamic republic says its public companies and financial system can not take the pressure. Annual inflation has been incessant, not dropping beneath 30 per cent since mid-2020, whereas the rial has plunged in worth, boosting the price of imports for Iranian shoppers. Iranian authorities say some 600,000 Afghan kids are finding out at Iranian faculties.
Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, stated final 12 months that Iran was spending $10bn yearly to shelter “over 6mn Afghans” with “inadequate” worldwide assist.
The financial state of affairs has develop into harder since US President Donald Trump reimposed his “most strain” marketing campaign over the nation’s nuclear programme.
The push to deport the principally Sunni Afghan migrants has been accompanied by incessant sectarian canine whistles in Shia-majority Iran.
Iranian officers have argued that Afghan members of teams like Isis, which was behind bombings in southern Iran that killed practically 100 individuals final 12 months, may cross the border and pose a safety risk.
Mohammad Amir, an Iranian lawmaker, referred to as for efforts “urgently” to cease unlawful crossings. “Except migration is regulated, adversaries may use undocumented immigrants to destabilise Iran,” he stated.
The prospect of forcing hundreds of thousands extra Afghans again throughout the border additionally dangers exacerbating tensions with the Taliban, Sunni hardliners with whom Iran has a fraught relationship.
Tehran has not but recognised the Taliban-led authorities, whereas the 2 nations have engaged in periodic border clashes in recent times as a part of a long-running water dispute.
In an effort to strengthen inner safety, Iran has expedited the development of a barrier alongside its porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Police have additionally in latest months intensified crackdowns on migrant employee settlements, which have proliferated round cities like Tehran, Karaj and Mashhad.
However Simin Kazemi, an Iranian sociologist affiliated with Shahid Beheshti College, stated that rising poverty and inequality had been driving a section of the Iranian public, authorities and media to “demonise Afghans who work with little pay and with out social safety, whereas their kids are unnoticed of faculty and their girls with out correct healthcare”.
Kazemi stated that Afghans have contributed to Iran’s financial system by offering a significant supply of labour. “Afghan labour has been instrumental to Iran’s improvement tasks,” she stated. “Afghans are accused of stealing jobs, whereas Iranian employers favor them as a result of they don’t seem to be coated by the labour regulation.”
Many, reminiscent of 22-year-old Morteza, have by no means identified anyplace else. Born to Afghan dad and mom in Iran, the second-year medical pupil stated he had developed a stronger sense of identification and belonging with Iranian tradition than with Afghanistan.
“I’ve at all times been handled pretty in school and was by no means singled out for being an Afghan,” he stated. “After I graduate and develop into a physician, I favor to dwell and work right here than return to Afghanistan. That is the place I’ve referred to as house.”
