Pakistan’s government has announced a major crackdown on migrants in the country illegally, saying it will expel them starting next month.

Pakistan’s government announced a major crackdown Tuesday on migrants in the country illegally, saying it would expel them starting next month and raising alarm among foreigners without documentation who include an estimated 1.7 million Afghans.

The country’s caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the crackdown was not aimed at Afghans and would apply to all nationalities, though the vast majority of migrants in the country are Afghans.

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 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border and who find shelter in Afghanistan.

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    ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s government announced a major crackdown Tuesday on migrants in the country illegally, saying it would expel them starting next month and raising alarm among foreigners without documentation who include an estimated 1.7 million Afghans.

    Bugti said 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.

    Although Pakistani police have routinely been arresting and deporting Afghans who have sneaked into the country without valid documents in recent years, this is the first time that the government has announced such a major crackdown on illegal immigration.

    It was unusual for such a major shift in immigration policy to come during a caretaker government, which is intended to tide the country over during interim periods between the end of a five-year National Assembly and elections.

    A government statement said the new migration policy was endorsed during a high-level meeting Tuesday among Pakistan’s political leadership and the country’s powerful military.

    After seizing power in 2021, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers announced a pardon for Afghans who had fled and urged them to come back, but most of them are staying in Pakistan or elsewhere in hopes of emigrating to other countries including the United States.

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