Ahmad Naderi, a member of Iran’s parliamentary Social Affairs Committee, has said the country’s economy depends heavily on Afghan labour and that expulsion of foreign workers is “neither possible nor logical.”

Speaking to Iranian media, Naderi called for a regulated and humane approach to managing Afghan migrants. “The correct solution is to regulate, legalise, and gradually manage the presence of foreign nationals in the labour market in a way that both protects the country’s economic interests and respects the human dignity and rights of these individuals,” he said.

His comments come amid a wave of arrests and deportations of Afghan migrants across Iran. Many of those detained were workers taken into custody during security raids and forcibly deported after being transferred to detention camps.

Following the mass deportations, Iranian labour experts warned of a potential workforce shortage.

In October, Mohammadreza Bahrami, director-general for South Asia at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, announced that Tehran would allocate 200,000 work visas for Afghan labourers. He said talks between Iran and the Taliban regarding undocumented Afghan migrants would continue.

Seyed Malek Hosseini, Iran’s deputy labour minister, said on 27 October that more than 1,700 visa applications had been submitted by Afghan workers, with 170 visas already issued. However, he noted that Afghan workers are restricted from certain sectorsy and barred from entering specific cities.

Naderi stressed that Afghan migrants have long been an essential part of Iran’s workforce, particularly in the industrial and construction sectors.