As Iran accelerates a sweeping campaign to deport undocumented Afghan migrants, fear and uncertainty are gripping families like that of Mohammed, a 41-year-old caretaker confined to a garden on Tehran’s outskirts. Too afraid of detention, he hasn’t ventured outside in months—not even for a haircut. His wife shops, his children go to school with trepidation, and returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, he says, would be a death sentence.
“I can’t live in Afghanistan under the Taliban,” Mohammed told the Financial Times. “My life will be at risk… there will be no job, no prospects, no family to take care of.”
Mohammed is just one among over 2 million Afghans who poured into Iran following the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. Now, Tehran is moving to force many of them out. Amid a deepening economic crisis and mounting domestic discontent, Iranian leaders have pledged to ramp up deportations—mirroring Pakistan’s own controversial expulsions of Afghan refugees.
According to Iranian officials, more than 1.2 million Afghans were deported between March 2024 and March 2025. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stated the returns will be “gradual and dignified” and coordinated with the Taliban. Still, humanitarian groups fear a looming social disaster for both nations.
“Iran cannot become the solution for Afghanistan’s every crisis,” one government adviser told the FT. “We’ve carried this burden long enough.”
Tehran claims to host over 6 million Afghans, making it the largest refugee-hosting country globally, with the UNHCR estimating around 3.8 million forcibly displaced persons of various legal statuses. Authorities cite crushing inflation—persistently over 30%—and sanctions-induced economic collapse as reasons why the country can no longer absorb the strain. Iran spends roughly $10 billion annually supporting this population, with little help from international agencies, diplomats say.
Yet critics warn the mass deportations could turn into ethnic scapegoating. In Shia-majority Iran, where sectarian rhetoric is rising, Afghan migrants—largely Sunni—have become targets of suspicion and social exclusion. Officials have cited security concerns, pointing to bombings by groups like ISIS that allegedly infiltrated from Afghanistan.
Lawmakers have urged tougher border security and crackdowns on informal settlements around major cities such as Tehran, Karaj, and Mashhad. Border fences are going up; police raids are increasing.
“This isn’t just migration policy—it’s about domestic pressure,” said Simin Kazemi, a sociologist at Shahid Beheshti University. “Afghans are demonised for taking jobs, while Iranian employers prefer them for being exploitable.”
Many Afghans, however, were born in Iran and have never known another home. Morteza, 22, is a second-year medical student whose Afghan parents fled decades ago. “I’ve always felt like I belonged here,” he told the FT. “After I graduate, I want to stay and contribute as a doctor. Afghanistan is not my home—Iran is.”
The Islamic Republic walks a tightrope: appeasing a frustrated public while avoiding a diplomatic fallout with the Taliban, whose regime it still does not formally recognise. Past border skirmishes and water disputes have frayed relations, even as the two sides now coordinate deportations.
As the political and economic costs mount, the human toll is becoming harder to ignore. Refugees like Mohammed remain trapped—physically and psychologically—between a hostile homeland and a country increasingly unwilling to shelter them.
