RASC News Agency: In a stark escalation of its immigration enforcement policy, the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced that undocumented migrants most of whom are Afghanistanis fleeing Taliban persecution will no longer be eligible for basic services, including education and healthcare. The move marks a troubling new chapter in the unfolding humanitarian crisis that has swept across the region following the Taliban’s violent return to power. Nader Yarahmadi, Director General of Iran’s Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs, confirmed that the government will cease extending census registration cards previously issued to undocumented migrants. These cards, which have served as a fragile lifeline for thousands, will expire by the end of March 2025, effectively rendering a significant portion of the migrant population invisible to the Iranian state and excluded from any form of legal or humanitarian protection.
Yarahmadi claimed that while Iran has long sought to approach the migrant issue with “humanitarian sensitivity,” the unrelenting influx of undocumented arrivals driven almost entirely by the Taliban’s tyrannical rule and economic collapse has placed insurmountable pressure on the country’s education and public health infrastructure. “The overwhelming presence of undocumented migrants, especially those without legal residency, has placed unsustainable burdens on our national systems. Education and healthcare sectors have reached a critical breaking point,” Yarahmadi stated. Under the new policy, only children possessing valid documentation will be permitted to continue their education. This effectively bars tens of thousands of Afghanistan-born children already traumatized by conflict and displacement from access to schooling. Healthcare access will likewise be denied to the undocumented, stripping families of the last vestiges of dignity in exile.
The implications are devastating. Most of those affected are fleeing the Taliban’s medieval interpretation of Islamic governance a regime that has institutionalized gender apartheid, silenced dissent, and shattered the foundations of a functioning state. In fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, these migrants have risked everything only to find themselves criminalized and abandoned beyond their borders. Yarahmadi urged undocumented migrants to leave Iran voluntarily, suggesting that those who do so might, at an unspecified future date, benefit from “special visa privileges.” However, this vague promise offers little solace to those who face persecution or death upon returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. For those who refuse to leave, Iranian authorities have warned of arrest, detention, and deportation with no guarantee of safety on the other side.
Yarahmadi also noted that Iran’s revised migration policy has been shaped not only by domestic challenges but by “regional instability” an indirect indictment of the Taliban regime’s catastrophic failure to govern. Over the past three years, Taliban misrule has transformed Afghanistan from a fragile republic into a collapsing prison state. Women have been erased from public life, journalists silenced, and professionals including teachers, doctors, and judges driven into exile or forced into destitution. The new Iranian measures have provoked alarm among migrant communities. In previous years, authorities collected sizable financial deposits from migrants in exchange for census documentation payments that many now fear will not be refunded. With expulsions accelerating, countless families face both the trauma of deportation and the loss of their life savings.
Images circulating on regional media platforms show the mounting desperation: thousands of migrants confined in overcrowded, makeshift detention camps, awaiting an uncertain fate. Outside Iran’s immigration offices, throngs of families including women with children wait in long lines, desperate to obtain exit permits. Many will wait in vain. This evolving crisis is not simply a matter of national policy; it is the byproduct of a geopolitical collapse. The Taliban’s regressive governance has triggered one of the largest forced migrations in modern regional history. Its failures ideological, administrative, and humanitarian have spilled beyond Afghanistan’s borders, burdening neighboring countries and leaving millions stateless and voiceless.
As Iran hardens its stance, the world must confront an uncomfortable truth: the Taliban’s war against its own people has not only devastated Afghanistan but destabilized the entire region. The international community, which once promised to stand by the Afghanistani people, must urgently revisit its obligations before the cost of inaction becomes irreversible.
