Yah I was just talking about the ID papers being thrown aboard by the refugees themselves. Its a long old trick used by illegals and visa overstayers, get rid of any documentation...so any existing diplomatic channels become hard or impossible (because the origin country can simply refuse them as theirs with no ID).
Correct. Khaleda Zia's administration did exactly this when a few of them were sent back in the 1990s.
However, I have sympathy for
actual refugees, like the Rohingya. But the thing is, Bengali Bangladeshis
are not refugees, they are just illegal migrants.
Airport is the toughest one for illegals given a country can take action against the airline that brought them there (and documentation is always there where the traveller originated from at least air travel wise and that can be used to deport with IATA/ICAO help if needed).
But boatloads arriving by sea (which I imagine were the biggest route) is just tough one to take action with in comparison. Plus the Zia factor which I did not know (thanks btw).
Exactly. Once inside Karachi, they were very hard to round up and deport. Boatloads of people are a problem. You can't load all of them onto planes. And what if those who are sent back by plane are refused at the airport (as Khaleda Zia's government did in the 1990s)? What if ships carrying them back to Bangladesh them are not allowed to dock in Bangladesh?
Some also made their way by train, bus, and on foot through India. They would travel to the border, and then just cross over. There is no record of those people even arriving. How do you track them down, or even know that they are in the country to begin with?
I mean you can put them in holding centres/camps etc, but thats just going to cost money (legal and living costs etc) esp when source-country does not cooperate (would have to wait for sanctions to take effect if they even matter)...compared to having them work (probably by using existing connections of their people locally) and if the administration is lax to their incoming stream in first place and a few bribes can handle any roughness, well then the long term issue gets put into place.
Right again. Keeping them in camps would be very expensive, and was somewhat unfeasible---there were hundreds of thousands of them. And of course, people would illegally smuggle them out and provide them with fake Pakistani identification.
Even if they were successfully held somewhere for a long period of time (unlikely), the same question would arise: How to deport them?
In the end though it is up to Pakistan's society...just like the problem reached tipping point in parts of India that border BD....only when society feels the issue is of high enough importance does the govt even make it a voter issue (and that takes time too)....and then implementation of something (which again takes more time).
True. The bottom line is that they have stopped immigrating and make up less than 1% of Pakistan's total population, and less than 5% of Sindh's, so there is no issue in Pakistan like there is in Assam and West Bengal, fortunately. I just bring it up every time some Bangladeshis have something negative to say about Pakistan, or when they complain about their Biharis.
Talked to a cpl lawyer friends few months back...there is tons of legislation even in developing world that takes much cost, time and effort once people come in (illegally) and esp settle in a country for certain amount of time (depending on various statute of limitation durations). Developed world say USA, it can cost 200k sometimes (or even more) per illegal to deport back....its not going to be same for developing country but I would imagine its quite high....esp with massive resistance from source country of the illegal (and no easy way for say Pakistan to bring counter-sanctions to bear like say US recently did with a few south american countries trying to do the same).
