MYTH vs. FACT: Refugees in Iran

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The red areas are where Afghan citizens do not have freedom of movement or permission to reside.

By AIC Senior Research Fellow Andrew Lumsden

MYTH: Especially since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran is only a place people seek to flee, and is not seen by refugees or migrants from other countries as a viable destination. 

FACT: Iran has indeed been a significant source country for refugees. However, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Iran is also “host to one of the largest and most protracted urban refugee situations in the world and has provided asylum to refugees for over four decades.” More than three million refugees and other migrants, overwhelmingly from neighboring Afghanistan, currently live in the country. 

What Is A Refugee?

The term ‘refugee’ is defined in international law by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as someone who is unable or unwilling to remain in or return to the country of their nationality due to “well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” 

UNHCR is the UN body responsible for providing services such as shelter, health and education to refugees, returnees, stateless people, internally displaced people and asylum-seekers. UNHCR estimates that there are currently well over 20 million refugees worldwide. 

Refugees in Pre-Republican Iran

While UNHCR’s statement on Iran focuses on the past 40 years, the country has actually hosted refugees from neighboring states for over a century. In the 1880s and 1890s, persecution by Afghanistan’s Sunni monarch Abd al-Raḥmān Khān (r. 1880-1901) led to the flight of tens of thousands of Hazaras, members of a predominantly Shia ethnic group in the country, primarily to Iran and modern-day Pakistan. These refugees settled around the northeastern city of Mashhad, near the Afghan border. Scholars estimate that 15,000 Hazara families fled to Iran during Abd al-Raḥmān Khān's reign. To this day Hazaras face persecution in Afghanistan and still make up the plurality of Afghans who seek refuge in Iran. 

During the Second World War, Iran hosted an estimated 116,000 Polish refugees relocated beginning in 1942, as part of an agreement between Poland’s government-in-exile and the Soviet Union, where many Poles had been held as prisoners-of-war or refugees following the USSR’s partial occupation of Poland in 1939. 

After arriving at what is now the port city of Bandar-e Anzali, the refugees were taken to Tehran and other Iranian cities including Mashhad and Isfahan, where an estimated 2,000 Polish children passed through during the war. Churches, schools and workshops were established for the Polish community, many of whom worked as laborers, maids, tailors and waiters. In schools, Polish children were taught Persian language, history, geography and carpet weaving, in addition to standard subjects and their native language.

Ultimately, only about 300 Polish refugees stayed in Iran permanently. Most adult men were transferred to training camps in Iraq and then to the Western Front, while other Poles were sent to destinations in the Middle East, India and Africa. Nearly 3,000 Polish refugees died in Iran, many having been critically ill upon arrival, and are buried in Polish cemeteries in Tehran, Bandar-e Anzali, Qazvin, Isfahan, Mashhad, Khorramshahr, and Ahvaz. 

Refugees In Iran Since 1979

The Iranian Revolution in 1979 led to the overthrow of the country’s ancient monarchy and the establishment of a theocratic republic headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In December of that year, upheaval also rocked neighboring Afghanistan as the Soviet Union invaded in a bid to shore up a floundering communist government in Kabul. In response to the war, Ayatollah Khomeini declared an ‘open door’ policy for Afghans fleeing the chaos, saying “we are Muslims, they are Muslims too.” According to UNHCR, Iran’s Afghan refugee population swelled from about 300,000 in 1980, to 1.5 million a year later. By the time of Khomeini’s death in 1989, Iran was host to an estimated 2.3 million Afghans. The Afghan refugee population in Iran would reach its peak of almost 3.2 million in 1991.

Iran in the 1980s and ‘90s also experienced an influx of refugees from neighboring Iraq. In 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, sparking a conflict which would devolve into a bloody eight year long stalemate. During this time, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, particularly ethnic Kurds, were expelled by Saddam’s Iraq, under spurious accusations of disloyalty. By the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the Iraqi refugee population in Iran had grown from an estimated 30,000 in 1980 to 500,000. The First Gulf War in 1991, as well as future persecutions of Kurds, Shias and other dissidents, real or imagined, by Saddam’s regime would push the Iraqi refugee presence in Iran to its peak of about 1.3 million in 1992. 

Beginning that year, Iran entered into a series of tripartite agreements with UNHCR and Afghan authorities to facilitate the repatriation of refugees in its territory. According to UNHCR, Iran’s Afghan refugee population has, with few exceptions, steadily declined over the past two decades, falling from about 1.5 million in 2001 to 780,000 in 2020. The Iraqi refugee presence in Iran has also been on the decline, falling from about 150,000 in 2003 to about 20,000 in 2020.  It is however, important to note that UNHCR’s current figures do not take into account those who may not meet the official definition of ‘refugee’ under Iranian or international law. 

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 has triggered another influx of Afghan refugees to Iran, with nearly 20,000 arriving within the first three months of Taliban rule. UNHCR concedes that these figures are most likely inaccurate and that the actual number of Afghans who fled to Iran since the recent Taliban takeover may be as high as 300,000. 

Evolution of Iranian Refugee Policy

Iran’s policy approach to refugees has undergone a stark transformation over the past 30 years, a change made even more dramatic in the context of the country’s remarkably liberal attitudes in times past. 

The Imperial Era

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, migration to Iran was generally unrestricted. Those Afghans who fled to the country during Abd al-Raḥmān Khān’s reign were integrated into Iranian society and communities, as were Polish refugees during their time in the country. Iran first established a formal policy framework for dealing with refugees in 1963. These regulations:

  • Defined a refugee as someone who “for political, religious or racial reasons or membership of a particular social group fears persecution or a threat to his life or that of his family members supported by him, and seeks asylum in Iran.”  

  • Allowed refugees to apply for asylum by submitting an application while outside of Iran or after having entered the country through an approved border guard post. 

  • Established that asylum should be granted so long as the application is made in good faith and not for purely economic reasons.

If an application was approved, refugees were given a booklet, later referred to as a “white card,” to be renewed every three months and which granted them:

  • Access to “medical, cultural and social services”

  • Access to employment in fields approved for foreign nationals

  • Freedom to carry out religious ceremonies and give religious instruction to their children

  • The right to choose a place of residence subject to Iran’s laws and security considerations

  • The right to seek justice in Iranian courts

Asylum could be revoked if refugees “commit acts contravening the national security or the laws of the country” or if “the circumstances leading to the refugees departure from their country of origin have ceased to exist.” Refugees who lose asylum status however, must be granted “sufficient time” to leave Iran and cannot be forcibly sent to a country where they face credible threats of persecution. Deportees must also be given travel documents if they have none.

Iran’s 1963 rules also call for favorable consideration of granting citizenship to law abiding refugees. 

In 1976, Iran became a party to the UN Refugee Convention. Like many of its fellow participants, Iran included reservations, opting to recognize some of the Convention’s articles as“recommendations only” and not legally binding. These articles are:

  • Article 17 which requires host nations to grant refugees the same rights to wage earning employment as are afforded to other foreign nationals in the country, and to give “sympathetic consideration” to granting refugees full wage-earning rights as natives.

  • Article 23 which entitles refugees to receive the same public relief and assistance as natives.

  • Article 24  which entitles refugees to equal protection under host countries’ labor laws and to benefits promised under social safety net schemes. 

  • Article 26 which grants refugees the right to travel freely and choose their place of residence within a host country.

The Khomeini-era (1979-1989)

Under Ayatollah Khomeini’s ‘open-door’ policy in the 1980s, refugees generally were allowed to move around and settle in the country without restrictions. Afghans were issued ‘blue cards’ which permitted them to reside in Iran indefinitely and entitled them to subsidized food, healthcare and primary to secondary education, albeit with limitations regarding access to employment and the ability to start their own businesses. Those from  Iraq were given green cards, which afforded similar privileges as the blue cards. It should be noted that blue card holders were officially not designated as refugees, but as mohajerin, an Arabic term which describes those fleeing religious persecution. 

Imperial-era ‘white cards’ were still issued at times, but were generally reserved for highly educated individuals and professionals and were disproportionately awarded to Iraqis over Afghans.  

The 1990s

Iran’s approach to refugees would shift dramatically in the 1990s to one heavily focused on repatriation. In 1992, Tehran stopped the automatic issuance of cards to new arrivals, who would instead be issued temporary registration cards  that allowed them limited legal status in Iran, but restricted them to refugee camps or other designated areas, and involved a process meant to ultimately end in repatriation. Access to subsidized food, healthcare and fuel for refugees was scaled back beginning in 1995. Afghans without work permits were  required to leave and the borders were formally closed in 2001. 

Scholars have pointed to several factors that led to this somewhat abrupt change, such as the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1989 – which ostensibly meant that Muslim Afghans no longer faced religious persecution–,  the rise of nationalistic as opposed to pan-Islamist sentiment in Iranian politics and society and the financial burdens caused by the Iran-Iraq War.

The 21st Century

In 2001, a U.S.-led coalition overthrew the Taliban, an Islamist, fundamentalist group which took control of most of Afghanistan soon after the Soviet withdrawl. Despite subsequent insurgent violence, Iran considered post-Taliban Afghans generally ineligible for asylum. Nearly all Afghans arriving in Iran since 2001, have been considered by Tehran to be illegal immigrants.  

In 2003, Iran replaced all previous forms of refugee documentation with a system called  Amayesh, which is now the only avenue to legally present status for refugees in Iran. Generally, only Afghan refugees who arrived before 2001 have been allowed to register for Amayesh cards. However, cardholders may register their children if both parents are cardholders.

Unlike previous registration regimes, Amayesh can only be obtained after payment of fees and municipal taxes, costs which can  total more than US$200. Amayesh cards must also be renewed yearly. Work permits require additional fees, which can exceed US$150 as well as nearly US$100 annually in renewal fees. However, those considered “vulnerable or financially destitute” can be exempt from municipal taxes. 

Due to an agreement between the Iranian government and UNHCR in 2015, registered refugees may receive subsidized healthcare coverage similar to that afforded to native Iranians under the country’s public health insurance program. UN Secretary General António Guterres, a former head of UNHCR, has called the agreement “unprecedented” and an “exemplary initiative.”

Any refugee without a valid Amayesh card is subject to detention and deportation. It is estimated that there are nearly 800,000 officially recognized Amayesh card-holding Afghan refugees in Iran.

Refugees or Economic Migrants?

Only about one-third of Iran’s Afghan population hold Amayesh cards. Nearly all the rest, believed to be about 2 million people, are undocemented. UNHCR only considers those with Amayesh documentation to be official refugees under its mandate.  

While the security situation in Afghanistan has not been particularly stable, even during the period of non-Taliban rule between 2001 and 2021, it is important to note that not all Afghans in Iran today have come as refugees. Migration to Iran by Afghans seeking economic opportunity as opposed to political asylum has been a common practice since at least the 1960s. 

According to UNHCR, Iran is by far the most popular destination for Afghans seeking employment, and in some Afghan communities, it is common for young, single men to travel to Iran with the intention of earning enough money to start a family and then return home. Others seek employment in Iran to send funds to family members in Afghanistan. Given that Iran reportedly no longer assesses whether or not entrants from Afghanistan are in need of asylum, it is impossible to know how many Afghans currently in Iran are there as refugees or as economic migrants. 

Undocumented migrants in Iran are subject to deportation, and it is estimated that Iran deports on average more than 250,000 Afghans each year. While an estimated 270,000 Afghans voluntarily return to Afghanistan annually, the number of undocumented people in the country has changed little, due to deportees re-entering Iran and new migrants crossing the border. 

In 2010, in a bid to address its large undocumented migrant population, Iran introduced the ‘Plan for Registering Afghan Nationals’, also known as the “Comprehensive Regularization Plan” (CRP). Under the CRP, Iran allowed undocumented Afghan migrants to register with the government and receive Iranian residency and work visas so long as they obtain an Afghan passport. These visas can be renewed every three months. According to UNHCR, as of 2021, there are about 275,000 Afghans in Iran who have obtained legal status through this process. However, in 2019, the Iranian Minister of the Interior’s Deputy for Security and Political Affairs put that figure at about 450,000. 

Nevertheless, for most undocumented Afghans in Iran, the CRP process, particularly the obtaining of an Afghan passport, can be near impossible to complete due to financial and logistical constraints. 

Treatment of Refugees and Migrants in Iran

While Iran in general has a poor record on human rights, refugees and migrants in the country often experience, as Human Rights Watch puts it, a “a host of abuses by both state and private actors.” 

Restrictions on Movement

Since 2002, citing national security concerns, Iran has declared the entirety or swaths of all but three of its 31 provinces to be off limits to “foreign nationals,” including properly registered refugees. Refugees, including those in good standing under the Amayesh system, caught residing or working in these restricted areas are subject to arrest and deportation. Enforcement of these restrictions have reportedly been relaxed over the past five years, however, Human Rights Watch estimates that these laws have already had a severe disruptive impact on hundreds of thousands of refugees who, even when not deported, have been forced to leave their homes, jobs and schools. 

Access to Employment

For Amayesh card holders with work permits, employment in Iran is allowed with restrictions. Jobs are available only in a narrow selection of generally manual labor intensive, low wage and high risk occupations such as garbage collection/burning, brick-making, mining and battery acid production. 

Refugees caught working without a permit or in an occupation not open to them under the Amayesh system are subject to deportation. Refugees’ access to employment opportunities are further limited by Iran's aforementioned restrictions on refugee movement within and between provinces. Scant access to gainful employment, in addition to impacting the quality of life for refugee families, raises obstacles to paying renewal fees for those with Amayesh cards and work permits.

Access to Healthcare

Despite the availability of health insurance coverage for registered refugees, Afghans in Iran, documented and undocumented face significant obstacles to accessing healthcare. 

Afghans, including those with legal status, have faced discrimination when attempting to access healthcare. Hospitals have at times refused to admit them outright. When admitted, they may be charged higher rates for service and some have reported healthcare staff being less responsive to them upon discovering their nationality. 

Undocumented Afghans have little to no access to health coverage, and generally must pay for health services or must rely on health services offered by charity organizations which are free but not always available. This, coupled with fear of deportation, leads to many Afghan migrants in need of healthcare to delay seeking it until their conditions have become severe. 

Child Labor and Exploitation

In 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered that all Afghan children in Iran regardless of immigration status must be allowed access to public schooling. Nevertheless, children from refugee families often are unable due to economic pressures to seek education and must instead join the workforce. Children under 15 are not legally allowed to work in Iran, but in August 2020, Iran’s then Interior Minister said that the majority of underage children working in the country were Afghans, and indicated that once identified, these children would be deported. 

Additionally, Human Rights Watch has found that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has recruited Afghan migrant/refugee children as young as 14 for deployment in Syria. Graves of several of these children have been located in both Iran and Syria. Moreover, interviews published by UNHCR with Afghans seeking asylum in Europe reveal that many undocumented young Afghan men living in Iran were promised documented status by authorities if they agreed to fight in the Syrian conflict. 

Physical Abuse

Afghan refugees/migrants in Iran have faced physical abuse by both state and non-state actors at all legs of their journeys, the Iran-Afghanistan border, inside of Iran and for those who slated for deportation, at the hands of authorities during the process. 

In May 2020, in an incident which sparked outrage in Afghanistan, Iranian border guards captured, beat and tortured a group of about 50 Afghans who had illegally crossed the border. The Afghans were then taken to the Harirud, a river which borders Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan, and forced at gunpoint into the water. While there were some survivors, Afghan officials estimate that about 23 of the migrants drowned. The Governor of Afghanistan’s Herat Province blasted Iranian authorities, writing that “our people, who you put in the river, were not Osama [bin Laden].”

Just a month later, Iranian security forces opened fire on a car carrying Afghan migrants. The car burst into flames, leaving three passengers dead and five hospitalized with burns. The incident, caught on video and widely shared on social media, sparked further outrage and protests in Afghanistan. 

In April 2022, several videos emerged on social media, showing Afghans being beaten, forced to repeat obscenities about Afghans and threatened with weapons by civilian Iranians. These incidents elicited a response by Afghanistan’s new Taliban regime, whose spokesman said “urge the Islamic Republic of Iran not to harass Afghan refugees.”

Iran’s embassy in Kabul said that these incidents do not properly reflect the treatment of Afghan refugees in Iran. However, they are consistent with reports from human rights organizations going back several years. Human Rights Watch reported in 2013 that Afghan refugees in Iran, including those who had lived in the country for years and had proper documents, faced beatings by police, arbitrary destruction of identification documents, confiscation of property and deportation without due process. 

During the deportation process, Afghans reported experiencing physical abuse, denial of food or medical care, overcrowded detention facilities, being forced to sleep outdoors and being required by authorities to pay the costs of their deportation. This demand was even reportedly made of unaccompanied minors. Those who failed to pay were either subjected to forced labor or required to remain in the detention facility until they could somehow raise the money. 

Use As Political Leverage

In 2019, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sparked international controversy when he suggested that Tehran may expel all Afghans in the country as a response to U.S. economic sanctions. Iran receives little international assistance in caring for refugees. Aid organizations have noted that U.S. sanctions raise frustrating obstacles for willing donors as many banks are unwilling to transfer funds into Iran, even for humanitarian purposes. 

Araghchi claimed that services provided to Afghan refugees including education cost Iran US$8 billion a year, and warned that Iran may “ask our Afghan brothers and sisters to leave,” adding that “we do not want that to happen…but if we have to, we will, and the consequences are on the United States.” 

After criticisms from Afghan government officials, international aid and human rights groups, as well as and Iranian conservatives, Aragchi walked back his comments, saying that they were “misinterpreted” and were simply a request for European powers to help Iran economically, in part to support Afghan refugees. 

Amnesty International warned that Aragchi’s comments are part of a “disturbing global trend of using people as bargaining chips for political ends.”

Future Outlook

Situated between Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has been on the frontlines of some of the world’s largest refugee crises. With little international aid and under severe economic sanctions, Iran has hosted millions of migrants and refugees, and in the past, offered generous access to healthcare, education and other amenities. 

Iran’s approach to refugees over the past three decades has featured both condemnable injustices and some encouraging reforms. Whether Tehran, now under unified hardline conservative control, will continue the restrictive, bureaucratic approach to refugees and migrants of the last thirty years or re-embrace its historically liberal outlook, despite Iran’s own economic challenges, remains to be seen.