KARACHI, March 3: A proposal, to issue “white passports” to provide the aliens living in the country an opportunity to go back their home countries has been pending with the federal government for several months, Dawn learnt on Wednesday.
Sources in the National Aliens Registration Authority (Nara) say that a proposal was sent several months ago to the interior ministry of the federal government to enact a law allowing the aliens who are getting themselves registered with Nara to get the white passport, in fact in green colour, as a legal travel document for a one-time travel to their home countries.
The sources say that thousands of illegal immigrants in the country want to go back to their countries, but they do not have the legal travel documents and they have destroyed all proofs of their nationality.
Illegal immigrants have been living here for years. Most of them are from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Burma and India.
Their repatriation is impossible in the present circumstances as there own countries have refused to recognise them as their respective citizens, which diminishes the possibility to deport them.
However, the sources say that the holders of the Pakistani white passport can travel to their countries. If they obtain the nationality of their countries, they can destroy the white passport. They can return to Pakistan if they wish.
The sources say the response of aliens to the registration is encouraging as more than 5,000 illegal immigrants, most of them Bengalis, have got them registered with Nara.
The second largest population of illegal immigrants are Afghans. The declared status of them is ‘refugee’. According to the sources they cannot be treated as foreigners, thus the Foreigners Act 1946 does not apply on them and Nara does not have the authority to register them as aliens.
Since these refugees were not confined to a specific territory, they have spread across the country. Nara is in a quandary whether to register Afghans or accept them as refugees.
The official sources say they are registering Afghans living here since 1988 in various cities, especially in Karachi. Nara will locate and identify those foreigners who do not have legal permission to stay in the country and motivate them to get themselves registered. The registration fee was earlier fixed at Rs1,000, it was later reduced to Rs250.
Nara has been entrusted with the task to tag all those living in the country illegally. According to an official, there are more than three million illegal immigrants in the country. 1.7 million of them are in Karachi.
The sources in the Special Branch of the Sindh police, which keeps an eye on foreigners and maintain their data, say that according to an estimate, 4.2 illegal immigrants live only in Sindh and most of them are staying and working in Karachi. Nara will register them and refer their cases to the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) to issue the registered foreigners work permits. The fee for the work permit was earlier Rs5,000, it has now been reduced to Rs2,500.
The sources say that initially the process of registration of aliens is being followed and work permits will be issued at a later stage on the directives of the federal government.
Nara has been set up under Ordinance No.XXV of 2000, an ordinance to further amend the Foreigners Act, 1946.
