Immigration to Pakistan


Immigration to Pakistan refers to the settlement of foreign nationals in Pakistan. Immigration policy is overseen by the Interior Minister of Pakistan through the Directorate General Passports. Most immigrants are not eligible for citizenship or permanent residency, unless they are married to a Pakistani citizen or a Commonwealth citizen who has invested a minimum of PKR 5 million in the local economy.
Based on the United Nations report World Population Policies 2005, the total immigrant population in Pakistan was estimated to be 3,254,000, representing 2.1% of the national population, and ranked 13th in the world. According to the United Nations report International Migration Profiles 2002, the population of immigrants in Pakistan was 1,098,110 in 1990 and 1,412,560 in 2000. The Express Tribune reported in January 2012 that there were 5 million illegal immigrants in Pakistan. Around 2 million were Bangladeshis, 2.5 million were Afghans and the other 0.5 million were from various other areas such as Myanmar, Iraq and Africa. However, the number of Afghan immigrants was reduced to 1.4 million due to UNHCR repatriation.

Demographics

As of 2009, 2.1% of the population of Pakistan had foreign origins. However, the number of immigrants population in Pakistan recently grew sharply. Immigrants from South Asia make up a growing proportion of immigrants in Pakistan. The largest immigrant group in Pakistan is Bangladeshis, followed by Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Indians, Sri Lankan, Burmese and Britons including a sizeable number of those of Pakistani origin. Other expatriate communities in Pakistan are Armenians, Australians, Iranians, Turks, Iraqis, Chinese, Americans, previously Bosnian refugees, and many others. Migrants from different countries of Arab world, especially Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, are in the thousands. Nearly all illegal migrants in Pakistan are Muslim refugees and they are accepted by the local population. There is no political support or legislation to deport these refugees from Pakistan.
Shaikh Muhammad Feroze, the chairman of the Pakistani Bengali Action Committee, claimed that there were 200 settlements of Bengali-speaking people in Pakistan, of which 132 are in Karachi. They are found in various areas of Pakistan such as Thatta, Badin, Hyderabad, Tando Adam and Lahore.
Experts say that the migration of both Bengalis and Burmese to Pakistan started in the 1980s and continued until 1998. Large scale Rohingya migration to Karachi made Karachi one of the largest population centres of Rohingyas in the world after Myanmar. The Burmese community of Karachi is spread out over 60 slums in Karachi such as the Burmi Colony in Korangi, Arakanabad, Machchar colony, Bilal colony, Ziaul Haq Colony and Godhra Camp.
Thousands of Uyghur Muslims have also migrated to the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, fleeing religious and cultural persecution in Xinjiang, China.

Afghan Refugees

As of 2017, approximately 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees are in Pakistan while around 1.3 million unregistered Afghan Refugees are also living in Pakistan. They are expected to leave Pakistan and return to Afghanistan in the coming years. They are mainly found in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas areas, with small numbers in the cities of Karachi and Quetta. Most of this group were born inside Pakistan in the last 30 years. In addition, about 500 Somalis, 60–80 Iraqi and 20–30 Iranian asylum seekers were reported to be temporarily residing in cities such as Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi. Nearly all of these are asylum seekers waiting to immigrate to Australia, North America, and the European Union. They only stay in Pakistan as visitors because by international law they cannot apply for asylum in the countries that they escaped from.
Type of populationTotal in Pakistan who are assisted by UNHCR
Refugees1.4 million
Asylum-seekers2,500

Illegal immigrants

In 2012, a Pakistani official claimed that five million illegal immigrants live in Pakistan. Since early 2002, Pakistan's government took steps to determine the number of illegal immigrants in its country. The National Alien Registration Authority started registering illegal immigrants in January 2006. According to NARA, there were an estimated 1.8 million illegal immigrants in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi in 2007. Others believe that there may be about 3.35 million illegal immigrants in Pakistan. As of January 2010, the number of illegal alimmigrantsiens in Karachi was estimated to be between 1.6 and 2 million. Thousands of nationals from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan are illegally living in Karachi. This includes thousands of Muslim students from Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia studying in the Pakistani madrasahs, while thousands of women from Bangladesh and Burma are working as maids and prostitutes there; most of them are illegal aliens.
According to some sources, thousands of radicals of Arab origin who entered the country illegally to fight in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979, and later against the US-led invasion in October 2001, still remain in the country.
Although the presence of illegal aliens in Pakistan is against the law, the Government of Pakistan did not make a serious effort to deport them until January 2010 when Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik asked illegal aliens to either leave or register themselves with the department concerned, as a major crackdown would soon be initiated against them. This action was taken following the recent bomb attack and targeted killings of political activists in the city, against foreign militants operating in Pakistan.
According to NARA, there are foreign nationals from over 76 countries, mostly from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, India and Burma illegally living and working in the country as laborers involved in construction businesses and others which require unskilled manpower, whilst most of the illegal immigrants are those who intend to use Pakistan as a transit country in order to immigrate to Western countries.