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Tajikistan confirms mass deportation of Afghan refugees
Officials noted that many individuals had either entered Tajikistan illegally or failed to comply with the country’s immigration and residency regulations.
Tajik authorities have officially confirmed the large-scale deportation of Afghan refugees, citing serious violations of immigration laws and national security threats as the primary reasons for the crackdown.
In a statement issued by the Press Centre of the Border Troops under the State Committee for National Security, the government acknowledged that a growing number of foreign nationals—many of them Afghan citizens—have been expelled from the country. The announcement comes amid a broader effort to tighten border controls in response to rising regional instability.
According to the statement, the influx of migrants is being driven by worsening political and economic conditions in neighboring countries. Officials noted that many individuals had either entered Tajikistan illegally or failed to comply with the country’s immigration and residency regulations.
“Given the complexity of the current geopolitical climate, a significant number of foreign nationals, including Afghan citizens, are residing in Tajikistan—many of whom entered the country unlawfully or have violated migration laws,” the statement read.
Border security inspections reportedly uncovered a range of violations, including involvement in drug trafficking networks; promotion of extremist ideologies; use of forged documents to obtain refugee status; and utilization of Tajikistan as a transit route for irregular migration, Caliber news outlet reported Wednesday.
Authorities underscored that such infractions posed a direct threat to national security and public order, and said the deportations were a necessary response. “These circumstances have necessitated the expulsion of individuals in breach of the law, including a number of Afghan citizens,” the statement said.
In one documented incident in April, approximately 50 Afghan refugees holding valid documentation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were deported. Many of the individuals, who were reportedly working as taxi drivers in the town of Vahdat, were summoned by the local state security department.
Their documents were confiscated, and they were transported to the Afghan border in two vehicles.
The deportations have drawn concern, particularly from Afghan authorities. In early June, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation announced that 49 Afghan nationals had been deported from Tajikistan “for unknown reasons.”
Among them were 36 individuals with valid residence permits and 13 holding legal visas. They were returned to Afghanistan through the Sherkhan Bandar crossing in northern Kunduz province.
Tajikistan has historically served as a refuge for Afghans fleeing conflict, from the civil war of the 1990s to the post-2001 U.S. intervention, and again following the Islamic Emirate’s return to power in 2021.
The Tajik government, which has maintained an openly anti-IEA stance, initially welcomed Afghan refugees after the fall of Kabul.
Although no official census exists, current unofficial estimates suggest that between 10,000 and 13,000 Afghan refugees remain in Tajikistan. Many are still awaiting decisions on asylum or resettlement, with some hoping for relocation to countries such as Canada.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
Sixty-one members of the U.S. Congress have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt immigration processing for Afghan nationals, warning that the move unfairly targets Afghan nationals following a deadly shooting involving two National Guard members.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said the incident should not be used to vilify Afghans who are legally seeking entry into the United States. They stressed that Afghan applicants undergo extensive vetting involving multiple U.S. security agencies.
The letter criticized the suspension of Special Immigrant Visa processing, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, and broader travel and asylum restrictions, warning that such policies endanger Afghan allies who supported U.S. forces during the war.
“Exploiting this tragedy to sow division and inflame fear will not make America safer. Abandoning those who made the courageous choice to stand beside us signals to those we may need as allies in the future that we cannot be trusted to honor our commitments. That is a mistake we cannot afford,” the group said.
The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck Afghanistan on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake occurred at 10:09 local time at a depth of 35 km, USGS said.
Its epicentre was 25 kilometres from Nahrin district of Baghlan province in north Afghanistan.
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