Mustafa, 50, and his family of eight are among 1.7 million undocumented, illegal Afghans in Pakistan who face a Nov.1 deadline by the government to leave or be forcibly expelled. Pakistan has hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, another 600,000 Afghan refugees have fled to Pakistan, according to the UN Refugee Agency. “It’s so bad that when I go out, they [police] say you don’t have a card, or they confiscate it and cut it, throw it away, and tell me to leave [Pakistan]. What should we do?”Khalil said his family would be devastated if he ended up in jail during the ongoing crackdown against illegal Afghans.
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