WASHINGTON, Oct 22: Another batch of 50 Pakistani deportees are expected to arrive in Pakistan later this week from the United States, it was learnt here on Wednesday.
Most of them are said to be proclaimed offenders— a term used for those who were ordered to leave the US by courts but went into hiding.
The last batch of 75 Pakistanis was deported on July 23, 2003, when a special flight took them to Islamabad from Buffalo, New York.
While tightening immigration laws, US officials also have stepped up their campaign to detain and deport illegal immigrants and visitors. So far four groups of Pakistanis have been ordered out of the country.
US officials sent their first chartered flight to Pakistan on June 25 and a second flight on Aug 21 with 95 deportees.
Chartered flights were postponed in August after the media, in Pakistan and the United States, strongly criticized the move.
The flights, however, resumed in November on the request of those Pakistanis who were languishing in US jails. They had been ordered to leave the country but had to wait for months to get seats on commercial flights.
The third flight with 87 deportees went to Pakistan on Nov 21.
Last year, immigration officials said they hoped to catch and deport up to 300,000 people who had been ordered to leave the country.