Iran Has a Mass-Deportation Policy Too

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1. Arash Azizi: “Last month’s war with Israel and the United States lasted only 12 days, but Iran is likely to feel its consequences for years. The country’s intelligence services failed to prevent Israel from assassinating many top military officials, and now the Iranian regime is lashing out in all directions. It has handed down harsher sentences to political prisoners, harassed members of religious and ethnic minorities, and executed dozens of people. But one community has suffered perhaps more than any other: Afghan migrants in Iran, who number as many as 6 million by some estimates.

   “In the past few months, Iran has deported hundreds of thousands of Afghans—The New York Times reports 1.4 million since January—sending them back across the 572-mile border the two countries share. This process began well before the Israeli bombing campaign. Back in March, Iranian authorities warned Afghans that many of their temporary residence papers would soon cease to be valid. But the war seems to have accelerated the campaign. Iran deported more than 100,000 Afghans within a few days last month. In June alone, at least 5,000 children were separated from their parents. The security forces have haphazardly picked up thousands of Afghans and even people suspected of being Afghans. Some are legal residents who were deported before they could produce their papers. In some cases, authorities have torn up residency papers. Every day, thousands are boarded onto buses bound for Afghanistan. Both the Taliban administration and the United Nations migration officials there have complained about the sheer number of migrants appearing at the border.

   “Deportation camps near Tehran are now filled with thousands of Afghans. Shargh, a Tehran daily, has published many harrowing reports on the deportation effort. With no time to change out of their slippers or work clothes, some Afghans scramble to get their relatives to bring them their papers before they are expelled from the country. An elderly woman told reporters that her husband, who is deaf, had lost his documents at one of the camps and is now being deported. Another woman lamented that her family had lived in Iran for 58 years and were now forced to leave the only country they knew. According to the latest instructions, only Afghans in certain migrant categories are allowed to stay. Temporary documents that once allowed others access to certain services are now void. Many Afghans have been deported before being able to collect the considerable security deposits held by their landlords (Iran’s inflation is such that renters typically put down a large lump sum as a deposit in lieu of paying a monthly rent).

   “Iran is justifying the mass deportations with the spurious claim that Afghans assisted Israeli operations in Iran. The authorities have paraded Afghan migrants on state television, airing their undoubtedly coerced confessions of guilt. In one clip, an Afghan migrant is shown confessing to the head of the judiciary that he filmed Iran’s air-defense systems, presumably for Israel. The authorities claim that these Afghans were paid via cryptocurrencies.

   “Such cynical ploys fool very few. Social media abounds with jokes about how the regime is so humiliated by Israel’s battering, all it can muster is a desperate crackdown on Afghans.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/eFwTF5Vj](https://theatln.tc/eFwTF5Vj)

2. Literally all nations do this. I rember my teacher crying in Ghana about his childhood friend being forced to move to nigeria cuase nigerrians where deporting Ghanians and Ghana had a pushback poilicy. Mind you their part of the same ethnic group. immigrants are easy targett when the economy on a downturn

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