Armed Conflict Foreign Relations & International Law

The Lawfare Podcast: Why Pakistan is Deporting Afghan Refugees with Madiha Afzal

Scott R. Anderson, Madiha Afzal, Jen Patja
Monday, November 20, 2023, 8:00 AM
Madiha Afzal talks about the aggressive deportations being conducted by Pakistan.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Over the past few weeks, the country of Pakistan has pursued an aggressive wave of deportations targeting thousands of Afghan refugees, some of whom have been in Pakistan for generations. Many fear that this move will add to the already precarious and humanitarian situation facing Afghanistan. But the Taliban regime, for one, has reacted in a way few expected.

To talk through these refugee removals and their ramifications, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Madiha Afzal, a Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. They talked about the origins of the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan, how this latest action intersects with concerns over terrorism, and where the crisis may be headed next.


Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Madiha Afzal is a fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Her work focuses on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and U.S. policy toward both countries. She was previously David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program and an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Afzal is the author of “Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State” (Brookings Institution Press, 2018).
Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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