Pakistan announces big crackdown on migrants in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans

By MUNIR AHMED and RIAZ KHAN
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s government has announced a major crackdown on migrants in the country illegally, saying it would expel them starting next month. This has raised alarm among foreigners without documentation who include an estimated 1.7 million Afghans. The country’s caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti says that any migrants in Pakistan illegally should go back to their countries voluntarily before the end of October to avoid mass arrest and forced deportation.  The campaign comes amid strained relations between Pakistan and neighboring, Taliban-led Afghanistan over what the Pakistani government says are attacks in Pakistan by Taliban-allied militants who go back and forth across the countries’ shared border and who find shelter in Afghanistan.