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In the weeks following the June 2025 Iran-Israel conflict, a new crisis has unfolded across Iran's eastern border. The Iranian government launched a sweeping deportation campaign targeting undocumented Afghan nationals, accusing them of ties to Israeli intelligence and drone manufacturing inside the country.
More than 700,000 undocumented Afghans have been pushed out since 13 June, according to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR.
Border regions are overwhelmed, humanitarian systems are buckling, and fear is rippling across Afghan communities in Iran. In both Iran and Pakistan, Afghan refugees are being deported en masse. Afghanistan, already struggling with deep economic challenges, is now receiving returnees from both countries with limited capacity to support them.
But to see this as a sudden rupture would be a mistake. Mass deportations from Iran may have reached new heights, but they are not new. What we are witnessing is not a breakdown of refugee policy, but the continuation – albeit with renewed intensity – of a longstanding strategy. In 2024 alone, around 764,000 Afghans were deported. In March 2025, the Iranian government announced the expiration of headcount slips and launched a regularisation and return scheme affecting nearly two million Afghans.
A history of solidarity
Iran has long portrayed itself as a generous host to Afghan refugees – and, in some respects, it has been. Following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, Iran opened its borders to millions of Afghans, granting them prima facie refugee status that included access to education and subsidised services. For a time, the country hosted the largest refugee population in the world.
But that era of revolutionary solidarity is long gone. Since the 1990s, Iran has steadily transitioned to a policy of strategic containment. Borders closed, services were restricted, and formal repatriation programmes took centre stage. Refugee policy became less about protection and more about control. The introduction of the Amayesh registration system in 2003 formalised this shift. Only Afghans already present in the country were eligible to register, while newly arrived individuals were categorically excluded from refugee status.
Iranian authorities estimate the total Afghan population in the country at 6.1 million, including both documented and undocumented individuals. UNHCR, meanwhile, reports that Iran hosts approximately 3.49 million refugees and individuals in refugee-like situations – a figure that includes people with various forms of temporary documentation, among them 770,000 Amayesh card holders, who are recognised by UNHCR as registered refugees and are theoretically protected from arbitrary loss of status.
Iran has not processed new refugee claims in more than two decades. Its refugee status determination system remains opaque. In the absence of a functioning asylum system, Iran has occasionally relied on ad hoc measures such as the headcount slips, which were cancelled in March 2025, to register and track segments of its undocumented Afghan population and provide a form of temporary documentation without offering any formal protection. The lack of a consistent and transparent legal framework continues to undermine data collection, leaving figures fragmented and unreliable – especially for undocumented populations – and contributing to misinformation and exaggeration in public discourse and on social media.
Iran’s approach to Afghan displacement has always extended beyond legal categorisation. Refugees have long been instrumentalised to serve state interests.
Although Iran has provided refugees with access to education and basic health insurance, these services remain significantly constrained by financial and bureaucratic barriers. Even individuals with official refugee documentation face a complex web of restrictions. Amayesh cardholders, for instance, must pay annual renewal fees, obtain travel permits to move between provinces, and are prohibited from entering designated “no-go” areas across much of the country. They are also excluded from university education and most skilled professions.
Ironically, holders of other temporary documents – who are technically less protected under international law – often enjoy greater rights and mobility than Amayesh holders. As a result, many second- and third-generation Afghans have, over the past decade, opted to relinquish their refugee status and obtain other forms of temporary documentation in order to access higher education or move more freely within the country. This trend is further driven by the fact that, despite more than four decades of residence in some cases, there remains no pathway to Iranian nationality for Afghan refugees.
Yet Iran’s approach to Afghan displacement has always extended beyond legal categorisation. Refugees have long been instrumentalised to serve state interests. Even those with Amayesh status are largely confined to low-wage, labour-intensive sectors such as construction and agriculture. For undocumented Afghans, the absence of labour protections makes them especially vulnerable to exploitation – benefiting employers and suppressing wage expectations.
Recast as threats
Regionally, Afghan refugees have been used as proxy fighters. Thousands were recruited into the Fatemiyoun Division to fight in Syria alongside Iranian forces. Some joined voluntarily for financial incentives or the promise of legal status. Others were coerced under threat of deportation. Human rights organisations have documented these practices extensively, underscoring the absence of long-term support for those who served.
But now, even this instrumental logic seems to be fraying. With Iran facing mounting economic pressures, growing domestic unrest, and a weakened regional posture, Afghan refugees are no longer viewed as assets. Instead, they are being recast as threats. Public sentiment has soured dramatically. Government rhetoric increasingly paints Afghans as a security risk, and social media is awash with hashtags calling for their mass deportation. Civil society voices try to push back, but they are drowned out by populist anger and economic frustration.
The shift is alarming not just for its scale but for its implications. Like many countries in our time, Iran is not merely managing a refugee population; it is actively rewriting the terms of who gets to stay and under what conditions. The current deportation wave, while targeting undocumented Afghans, sends a chilling message to all. Those holding temporary documents or who switched from refugee status to other documents now live in fear. Similar dynamics are playing out elsewhere: in the US, where sweeping restrictions and mass removals have reshaped the landscape of asylum, and in Europe, where temporary protection statuses are increasingly tied to shifting political moods. What unites these cases is a growing reliance on legal ambiguity and exceptional measures to erode long-standing norms of refugee protection.
Mass deportation of Afghans from Iran is not merely a humanitarian failure – it is the outcome of a calculated political strategy. By scapegoating refugees, the Iranian state deflects attention from its own economic and governance crises. Deportation becomes a performative act: a display of control meant to assert national sovereignty, project strength, and rally a frustrated public – especially in the wake of the recent 12-day conflict – around a manufactured internal threat.
In the end, even deportation is a form of utilisation. Afghan refugees, once symbols of Islamic solidarity and later of geopolitical leverage, are now instruments of domestic survival for a regime under strain. The policy hasn’t failed. It is working exactly as designed.
And that is precisely the problem.
