Pakistan has begun arresting and deporting Afghan refugees who missed Wednesday morning’s deadline for them to leave, a government minister has announced. At least 200,000 people have already returned to Afghanistan voluntarily, said Pakistan’s acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti.

The crackdown on unregistered foreigners, part of Pakistan’s new anti-immigrant policy, affects some 2 million Afghans thought to be in Pakistan without documentation.

Bugti said: “There will be no compromise against illegal refugees. We have the data on who are staying illegally in Pakistan. We are going door to door, and we have done geofencing. We will detain and deport them. We have arrested dozens across the country so far, including in the capital.”

Afghans would be put in buses, trucks or whatever was available to transport them to the border, said Bugti, and authorities would be tracking them to ensure they did not return. He attacked the west for not doing enough to help relocate Afghans at risk from Taliban retaliation if they return.

Pakistan’s policy of forcibly returning refugees has drawn widespread criticism from UN agencies and rights groups, and from the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, which has urged its neighbour to give undocumented Afghans more time. Although the numbers of Afghans crossing into Pakistan rose dramatically after the Taliban takeover, many others have been living and working in Pakistan for years.

Refugee holding camps have been established for the thousands waiting to cross the border. In Chaman, a border town with Afghanistan, more than 1,000 refugees are staying in temporary shelters, anxiously waiting their turn to be deported. Gul Mohammed, an Afghan in his 50s, said he does not know what he would do in his home country, having lived in Pakistan for many years and with family there.

“I will see what I can do to survive in Afghanistan after I reach there. I have tried to contact those who have reached Afghanistan to know how they are doing, but I failed. Uncertainty waits for many of us,” said Mohammed.

Pakistan started rounding up Afghan refugees before the deadline had expired, and police have been accused of the harassment of both illegal and legal refugees. In the Chaman camp, Saddam, who moved to Pakistan seven years ago, said the constant police raids had made him leave. “They were raiding, arresting and harassing us, and I was forced to leave for Afghanistan. The police were hurting our dignity by their cruel behaviour.”

Also in the camp was Mir Agha, 23, who said: “I was born and raised in Pakistan. All my siblings were born here. We had proof of refugee cards given by the UNHCR but they were scissored by the police after they arrested us.

“Pakistan is now home, not Afghanistan, and we will be refugees there. We can’t relate there. We are refugees in both countries. I’m worried about how I will survive and live there.”

Chaman district’s deputy commissioner Raja Athar Abbas said authorities have deported at least 4,000 people on Wednesday. For the 1,000 refugees in the camp, he said: “We are providing them boarding, lodging, food, medical and municipal services, and we have registered them with us before we deport them,” he said.

The UNHCR has raised fears over forced deportations, especially of minorities, journalists and women, who are at risk under the Taliban regime. Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, said these groups would not be forced to return: “The fear of deportation of journalists, activists and minority groups are in our notice and we will take due precautions.”

‘We’re so fearful’: Pakistan rounds up Afghan refugees for deportation

But thousands of Afghans who worked for the US, Britain and other western countries before the Taliban takeover are stranded in Pakistan. Bugti said that if the west was so sensitive about the Afghan refugees, they should have done more to relocate them in the two years since the fall of Kabul. “We set a deadline for those Afghans who are supposed be relocated to the western countries such as the US, UK and other countries. If they are not taken to the west by the deadline, we have to declare them illegal refugees, then detain and deport them,” said Bugti.

A senior US official estimated that there are still 25,000 Afghans who could be eligible for resettlement in the United States. “We are actively reaching out to and communicating with those individuals. Many within these groups would be placed at risk if repatriated to Afghanistan,” said the official.

For a year after the fall of Kabul and the swift withdrawal of international allies from Afghanistan, Jawed* and his family were in hiding, evading the ruling Taliban as they counted the days waiting for relocation promises from the British government to be realised.

“But that didn’t happen. To this day, two years and two months [later], we’re still living in limbo,” Jawed, a former English teacher for the British Council, said from a hotel in Islamabad.

“They don’t care about their allies, they don’t care about our human life, they don’t think about our situation. Do you want us to suffer and then save a few thousand pounds? Is it logical?”

Jawed is one of more than 2,000 Afghan refugees who risked their lives working for or alongside the British government in Afghanistan and who have been stuck in Pakistan for months – and in some cases years – awaiting resettlement in the UK under the Home Office’s Afghan citizens resettlement scheme (ACRS) or the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) scheme run by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Time is crucial as earlier this month Pakistan announced plans to deport “illegal immigrants” after 1 November, a move that the UN has said will put more than 1.4 million Afghans living in the country at grave risk.

Without the legal right to work or to access education and healthcare, and now with the threat of deportation, individuals that the Guardian interviewed said they felt like prisoners and they expressed regret about having worked for the British government, which they said would expose them to further risk should they be returned to Afghanistan.

“This is a story of government failing and not taking the lives of Afghans seriously,” said Sara de Jong, a co-founder of the Sulha Alliance, which supports Afghans who worked for the British government to resettle in the UK, and a professor of politics at the University of York.

Last week, the first flight bringing Afghan refugees from Pakistan arrived in the UK. Meanwhile, the British government is being sued by two Afghan families awaiting transfer in Pakistan. This month, documents released in court showed many faced prolonged waits after Rishi Sunak halted relocations to the UK in November 2022, saying in all but extreme cases they could not be accommodated in UK hotels.

Months have passed since Jawed’s family arrived in Pakistan. Their visas have expired and they fear leaving the hotel as authorities crack down on immigrants. His wife is heavily pregnant and if they are not relocated soon he fears they will be waiting longer. The family, yet to receive UK visas, are uncertain when they will be relocated.

“We are young and more than two years of our lives are wasted,” said Jawed. “How long do we live? How long are you going to waste our life, our youth, our dreams?”

A government spokesperson said: “The UK has made an ambitious and generous commitment to help at-risk people in Afghanistan and so far we have brought around 24,600 people to safety, including thousands of people eligible for our Afghan schemes.

“We continue to honour our commitments to bring eligible Afghans to the UK, with new arrivals going directly into settled accommodation where possible.”

Khan* has waited more than 700 days in his Islamabad hotel room. With the threat of deportation looming, he fears the Taliban will kill him if he is returned to Afghanistan. He does not leave the hotel’s confines – not even to buy shoes or clothes – fearing arrest by authorities who have gone into hotels and arrested individuals visiting hospitals, according to charities.

“I’m like a prisoner stuck here,” said Khan, a former translator for the British army, who has fewer than 20 days remaining on his UK visa under the Arap scheme. “I don’t know what I have to do, life is very hard here.”

For two years, Khan worked alongside British troops, accompanying sieges and missions that stretched to 19 hours at times. On one occasion, an explosion killed two soldiers he worked with and left him in hospital. He said he accepted the risk that accompanied the work, wanting to serve his country and help people.

“I lost everything,” said a tearful Khan, who lost his father, brother, wife and son in Afghanistan. “[For] two years I am waiting in one room, but I need [a] life, I need a home.”

With the deadline approaching, he worries the government is prioritising resettling families over single individuals, such as himself, who have waited longer.

“In hard times when you were fighting in Afghanistan, I was shoulder by shoulder with you. But now you ignore us,” said Khan. “We want justice. We want your friendship. Don’t ignore us.”

*Names have been changed to protect identities.