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| October 5, 2005 | Wednesday | Sha’aban 30, 1426 |
80 Pakistani deportees returning from US
WASHINGTON, Oct 4: Another batch of 80 Pakistani detainees is leaving for home later Tuesday by chartered flight. As many as 139,000 Pakistanis have been deported from 47 countries, including the United States, European Union and Arab countries, during the last two years, the National Assembly was informed earlier this week.
More than 2,000 Pakistanis have been deported from the US since the Sept 1, 2001 terrorist attacks, most of them for visa violations.
The last batch of 57 Pakistani deportees from the United States arrived in Islamabad on May 18 this year.
The chartered flight was scheduled to leave from Buffalo, New York, later Tuesday with yet another batch of 80 Pakistani nationals.
After the repatriation of this group, 107 Pakistanis will still remain in detention in the US. They are pursuing their cases in US courts.
The majority of the deportees are deportation absconders who had been ordered deported in the past but did not comply with those orders. The others have been convicted of crimes such as larceny, sexual assault, narcotics possession, immigration fraud, robbery, forgery, perjury and counterfeiting, etc. Those in the latter category have already completed their sentences in the United States.
After the initial deportation in small batches, the Pakistan embassy in Washington and the US Department of Homeland Security worked out a plan to send the deportees on chartered flight to ensure early repatriation of those detainees who have exhausted all judicial remedies and wish to go back to Pakistan.
The embassy, working with relevant US agencies, ensures that Pakistani nationals do not have to suffer long incarceration after the culmination of their judicial processes.
Like previous such flights, an embassy official has interviewed all detainees to ensure that only those detainees are repatriated to Pakistan who have no pending judicial appeals in US courts and want to return to Pakistan.
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