ISLAMABAD – The United States has imposed sanctions on Pakistanas Islamabad has refused to take back its citizen deportees and visaover-stayers.
“Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged. This is a bilateralissue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and weare not going to get into the specifics at the time”, a State Departmentspokesperson said.
According to the State Department’s federal register notification, dated 22April, “for some countries sanctions begin by targeting officials who workin the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country’snationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of thoseofficials and potentially officials of other ministries and then othercategories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effectiveat encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government”.
Former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani hasemphasised that Islamabad’s refusal to accept its citizens deportedfrom the US is not new, but sanctions will create obstacles for Pakistaniswilling to travel to the United States.
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“This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or needto travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authoritieshad not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirementsfor deportation”, he said.
Section 243 of the Immigration and Nationality Act providesfor discontinuance of visa issuance as a penalty for those countries thatrefuse or “unreasonably delay” accepting the return of their deportednationals. The US has already introduced visa restrictions on Ghana,Guyana, the Gambia, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Myanmar andLaos.
