Many consider that Pakistan’s decision to remove Afghan immigrants from its territory has caused international and domestic debates. The Pakistani government strongly supports deporting undocumented people because of legal rules and concerns, which may impinge upon national security. This indicates that security remains first and foremost. Therefore, the government believes such a category of undocumented Afghan immigrants could potentially endanger the security of the country. As the government primarily focuses on enforcing laws by protecting its borders, many argue that it often ignores the bigger economic problems that Pakistan might face out of this process.
It may be argued that the forced removal of Afghan immigrants who spent decades working in Pakistan’s economy puts entire economic sectors at risk while breaking informal trading networks and damaging susceptible urban centers and regional financial systems, particularly in Balochistan province.
The informal labor economy of Pakistan exists today because of the years of immigrant labor supplied by Afghan workers. All sectors of Pakistan’s informal labor market included Afghan workers who performed brick kiln production as well as market vending and road transport and building construction activities. Business operations face difficulties due to the abrupt departure of Afghan migrant workers in these specific sectors.
The current strain creates difficulties for Pakistan’s national economy because it must manage high prices and limited growth while unemployment keeps rising
The high number of Afghans residing in Quetta and Peshawar has created workforce shortages that constrain both small businesses and contractors in maintaining their staff. Existing Pakistani labor rates induce businesses to raise their compensation because they want to hire these workers, but this cost increase jeopardizes the survival prospects of minimal-profit businesses. The current strain creates difficulties for Pakistan’s national economy because it must manage high prices and limited growth while unemployment keeps rising.
Deportation policies affect the largest and least developed provincial area of Pakistan, which is Balochistan, most forcefully. The status of provincial capital belongs to Quetta because it serves as a commercial trading center that connects with the Afghan border. The connection between Afghan immigrants and Quetta’s economy developed through employment practices, buying power, and trading operations.
Small-scale business owners from Afghanistan operated their ventures throughout the Meezan Chowk and Kandahari Bazaar markets in Quetta. Non-skilled workers from Afghanistan provided their labor to agricultural work along with construction and transport sectors. The informal sector’s existence depended on their active involvement, and simultaneously they increased the market for residential property as well as food,goods, fuel, and other fundamental necessities.
With their forced exit, Quetta’s economy is witnessing a dual shock—both a loss of labor and a contraction in consumer demand
With their forced exit, Quetta’s economy is witnessing a dual shock—both a loss of labor and a contraction in consumer demand. Rents in lower-income areas are falling due to a sudden surplus in available housing.
Daily markets have seen a noticeable drop in foot traffic. For a province already suffering from chronic underinvestment, minimal infrastructure, and one of the highest poverty rates in the country, this shock could not have come at a worse time.
Their daily expenditure on rent, utilities, groceries, healthcare, and education created an ecosystem of demand that supported countless small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
Afghans in Pakistan were not just economic participants as workers—they were also consumers. Their daily expenditure on rent, utilities, groceries, healthcare, and education created an ecosystem of demand that supported countless small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The ongoing deportation campaign has led to a sharp decline in this demand, particularly in urban centers.
In areas like Quetta and Karachi’s Sohrab Goth—home to large Afghan communities—local shops, tuition centers, and private clinics report fewer customers. This drop-in activity directly threatens the survival of microbusinesses that were already struggling in the post-COVID and post-flood recovery period.
Commerce and unofficial banking activities serve as another unobserved result that faces disruption from deportation activities. Many Afghan migrants served as connectors linking the parallel trade systems between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The activities of legitimate and black-market trading entities along Pakistan’s borders enabled economic survival for residents of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial territories. The deportation of essential regional trade network maintainers will cause economic difficulties for exporters and importers along with freight operators because these networks are likely to decline.
The informal hawala system played a vital role by enabling Afghan families to send and receive money transfers through such networks across Pakistan. The disappearance of this financial activity might cause instability in already weak microfinance systems that operate in border regions along with refugee settlement areas.
The process of mass removal of inhabitants causes substantial financial costs to the state. It entails the state’s allocation of major financial resources both in the maintenance of frontier security and detention procedures and frontier services management systems and transportation infrastructure. These funds from essential development targets such as the public health sector and social protection with the education sector should be allocated to Balochistan urgently so that the government can benefit the area, which has been mostly neglected by the regional and provincial parties in the past.
This action has been diplomatically criticized by international human rights organizations, which could further deteriorate the ties between Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan. If relations with the Taliban government deteriorate, they will be securing border instability, which will inevitably increase the risks of insecurity and trade operations in the region.
On Pakistan’s side, this multifaceted economic result from Afghan deportations is still relevant to the assessment by Pakistani decision-makers of its national security needs. Even though Afghan immigrants did not have proper immigration status, these people were fully integrated within the Pakistani socio-economic fabric. The removal of 1.5 to 3 million Afghan migrants took away their labor force and depleted their consumer spending, which affected underdeveloped areas such as Balochistan in particular.
The economy has to overcome such structural hurdles that it requires continued economic strength
The removal will not happen as long as there is no complete implementation of the total removal of the documentation between different governmental approaches through sustained partnerships creating documentation and local integration and regional diplomatic actions. The economy has to overcome such structural hurdles that it requires continued economic strength; thus, all new economic policies in Pakistan have to be assessed based on sustainability criteria to measure their effectiveness.
How a country goes about these two things—security and development, as well as practical decision-making and empathetic leadership—depends on the country itself. Instead of economic reduction plans, Pakistan needs to adopt economic strength-building strategies to secure borders and secure future success.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.
