The head of Tehran’s city council said the municipality could employ Afghan migrants as street cleaners, even as Iranian authorities continue mass deportations of Afghans.
Mehdi Chamran, chairman of the council, told reporters on the sidelines of the body’s 355th public session that the capital’s municipality can already use what officials call “foreign nationals,” but only within legal limits.
“The municipality can employ migrants, but it must be done according to the law,” Chamran said. “This is not about opening the door without rules. The regulations are defined by the government.”
Iranian authorities refer to undocumented Afghans as “illegal foreign nationals.” Rights groups and deportees have accused Iranian police of abuses during forced expulsions, including confiscation of property, insults and beatings.
Iran has intensified deportations over the past two years. Local media reported recently that the removal of Afghan families from Khorasan Razavi province left about 1,000 classrooms empty. According to those reports, around 30,000 Afghan students and their families were expelled, creating the vacancies.
Amirallah Shamaqadri, the deputy security governor of Khorasan Razavi, said Saturday that more than 75,000 Afghan students had been enrolled in the province in recent years, about half of them undocumented. He said 95% lived in Mashhad.
Shamaqadri said roughly 35,000 Afghan children with legal residency documents remain in schools in the province.
