KABUL — Mohammad Sadeq Motamedian, governor of Tehran, said on Monday that a second phase of deportations of “undocumented migrants” to Afghanistan will begin soon, and that the removals are being pursued “seriously,” Mehr News Agency reported.
Motamedian repeated Tehran authorities’ claims that earlier expulsions freed “3,000 classrooms” and eased school overcrowding, and he asserted the removals reduced public crime, cut flour consumption and returned jobs to Iranian workers.
Those figures and causal claims are being promoted by state-linked media but are disputed by independent reporting and aid agencies. Reuters and Al Jazeera, among others, have documented that Iran’s invalidation of migrant “census” cards, which affected roughly two million people according to Iranian officials and local reporting, has been followed by mass returns to Afghanistan and widespread challenges for returnees.
As many as 1.8 million Afghans have been returned from Iran since the expulsions intensified this year. The scale of returns has placed heavy pressure on services in border provinces and on Kabul’s ability to absorb new arrivals.
The expulsions have produced economic disruption inside Iran as well. Several Iranian outlets and analysts say industries that relied on Afghan labour, construction, agriculture and small manufacturing, are reporting shortages and temporary closures after the removal of many migrant workers.
Reports indicate accounts of factories and farms struggling to find replacements, contradicting Tehran officials’ claims that expulsions have restored jobs to Iranian nationals.
Human-rights groups and UN experts have strongly criticised the forced deportation, warning that many returnees face an insecure Afghanistan with limited services, economic collapse and rights restrictions.
They have called for restraint and adherence to international protection obligations, saying forced returns and the large-scale invalidation of documentation risk creating a humanitarian emergency.
