Millions Afghan refugees are stuck in Pakistan, waiting to move on to a third country. DW met one family who thought they were about to head to the US before this month's abrupt shift in US policy and president Trump's travel ban for Afghans. Pakistan, meanwhile, is scaling up deportations.
00:00Sayyid Mehsood Mehboob, seen here on the left with his family, fled to Pakistan in 2022 with 20 family members, while applying to be resettled in the US.
00:12A veteran media worker, he sold his house and vehicles. He describes the despair after President Trump barred Afghans from travelling to the United States.
00:22When Donald Trump announced the travel ban, some people from our community in Punjab and Islamabad, one woman among them, jumped from the fifth floor and committed suicide.
00:38And one man had a heart attack.
00:46Mehboob's son Sayyid Ghafoor is a dentist. He cannot find a job here despite his experience and cannot even legally work in Pakistan.
00:58Many who had applied to the US refugee program are former Afghan professionals who had been pre-approved by US immigration.
01:06Now they face expulsion from Pakistan while worrying about how to get by every day.
01:13We sold the clinic and all its equipment in Kabul and spent the money in Pakistan. We have been here for three years. We have no future and this makes us suffer.
01:25Many Afghans, like Mehboob's family, exist in legal grey zones, unable to work, rent freely or move around without fear.
01:33The expulsion of undocumented Afghans has created an atmosphere of uncertainty.
01:38People like Sayyid Mehboob are expected to pay $100 per person per month just to keep their legal status within the country.
01:46The US travel ban on one side and the Pakistani pressure on the other. The lives of these Afghans hang in limbo.
01:53Many Afghans in Pakistan have never even set foot in their home country or were brought here as children.
02:01They too face deportation. One analyst says there's a better way.
02:08Within Pakistan, at least those who were born in Pakistan or raised in Pakistan,
02:13they could be integrated in Pakistan by the support of the international community.
02:20Mehboob chose Pakistan as a temporary refuge with the aim to move anywhere he and his family could live in safety.
02:27Now that the US cancelled its refugee program, Sayyid Mehboob is trapped between US policy shifts and Pakistan's tough stance towards Afghans.
02:39We had a pending American refugee case. We came here and our departure date was fixed for January the 20th.
02:49Our cases had been in process for six months. Now that Trump has imposed a travel ban, it has caused us a lot of trouble.
02:58Their paperwork may be complete, but that may no longer matter.
03:06With America shutting its doors and Pakistan expelling Afghans, they just don't know where their next move will be.
