Between Borders and Rights: A Pakistani Migrant’s Journey Through Detention, Pushbacks, and Asylum Law

Last night I met again a twenty-eight-year-old Pakistani man I had encountered some time ago. He had already struck me then for the clarity of his thinking, for that rare ability to observe reality with a depth that cannot be improvised. It is not merely intelligence: it is awareness, it is experience that has become a way of seeing.

This time we were not distracted by others. I asked him, respectfully, whether he felt like telling me his story. Not just any story, but his. The one that often remains at the margins, not because it lacks value, but because it lacks the space to be truly heard.

In that moment I understood that I was not simply about to collect a testimony, but to step into a complex human and legal trajectory, where words such as "migration," "law," "border," and "freedom" cease to be abstract categories and become lived experience.

When he begins to speak, he does not construct a narrative in the traditional sense. He does not arrange facts to persuade, he does not attempt to explain the world he has moved through, nor to justify his choices. Rather, he reconstructs a trajectory. A sequence of steps that seem to respond to an internal logic, shaped more by necessity than by alternatives. He tells me that everything began with a departure. No emphasis, no unnecessary details. He left Pakistan and arrived in Iran. From there he continued his journey, crossing borders until he reached Turkey. It is not an itinerary. It is a line drawn step by step, often without the possibility of deviation.

In Turkey he stayed. He worked. For about two years. Yet that time, which in other contexts might represent the beginning of a path toward stability, in his account takes on a different nature. It is not integration, it is not rootedness. It is suspension. It is a presence that never becomes belonging, a job that does not translate into legal recognition. It is the typical condition of those who live in an intermediate space: present, yet not recognized; visible, yet not protected.

Then he pauses. And in that pause something enters that radically changes the meaning of the story.

He was in prison. For almost seven months.

He does not use legal categories. He does not speak of arrest, charges, or defense. Yet precisely this essentiality makes the fact even more powerful. Because that deprivation of personal liberty immediately recalls one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law: no one may be deprived of liberty except in the cases and in the manner provided by law. This is what Article 13 of the Italian Constitution establishes, and what Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights reiterates, requiring legality, judicial control, and effective safeguards. And yet, in his experience, these guarantees do not emerge. Not because the law does not exist, but because it failed to reach him.

From here arises an inevitable question: how does one get out of such detention?

The answer, unfortunately, is less straightforward than one might think. There is no single path, and above all there is no path that truly depends on the migrant's will. In theory, a system of guarantees exists. Detention often occurs in administrative return centers, formally distinct from prisons, yet in practice capable of imposing similar restrictions on personal liberty. In this context, the migrant should be able to challenge their detention through a lawyer, activating judicial review.

But in reality, access to this protection is deeply unequal. Having a lawyer is not automatic: it requires information, contacts, the ability to communicate, and an understanding of the language and the system. All elements that are often lacking. Only a minority truly manage to activate a legal remedy. For many others, the right to defense remains an abstract possibility.

There is also the possibility of administrative release when repatriation cannot be immediately carried out. But this is a discretionary, unpredictable decision, which does not derive from the exercise of a full right. It is not an achievement. It is a contingency.

There is, at least on paper, the possibility of applying for international protection. The right to asylum, enshrined in the Geneva Convention, should guarantee an individual assessment of risk. Yet here too the gap between norm and effectiveness is evident. Without information, without assistance, without real access to the procedure, the right remains theoretical.

Thus, in practice, something else happens.

Many are released because they are sent back. Through so-called "voluntary" programs, which often represent the only real option, or through forced expulsions. In these cases, getting out means giving up.

Others, instead, try again.

That is what he describes: the "game." Trying, failing, being pushed back, starting again. It is not a strategy. It is a necessity. And it is extremely dangerous.

In this context, Turkey is not merely a transit country. It is a place of containment. A space where people remain trapped between detention, precarious work, and the impossibility of moving forward.

And it is within this reality that his story continues.

After detention, he returns to work. He remains. But he remains within that same precariousness. Then he decides to leave again.

He tried eight times to reach Italy. Seven times, he tells me clearly, he was pushed back.

He uses precisely this word: pushback.

And it is not a detail. It is a precise legal term, which recalls the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in Article 33 of the Geneva Convention and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. A principle that should prevent returns to contexts of risk.

And yet, in his experience, that word does not protect.

It describes.

A fact that repeats itself. Seven times.

In the end, however, he manages to get through.

Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia. Then Italy.

Each step is a risk. It is not a linear path. It is a sequence of attempts.

When he speaks about the present, something changes.

He works. In a hotel. He carries luggage, sometimes washes dishes. He says he works well. He says he is happy.

But before this, there is an element that deserves attention.

He tells me that he studied Italian. Seriously, in a structured way. He obtained certified levels.

It is not a secondary detail. It is proof of an investment in himself, of a concrete and measurable will to integrate. It is not merely a presence that adapts. It is a presence that is built.

And yet, even this is not enough.

He does not have a stable residence permit. He must renew it every three and a half months. Even while working. Even while being integrated. Even after demonstrating commitment and ability.

Here a clear fracture emerges between reality and principles.

On the one hand, Article 3 of the Italian Constitution, which requires the removal of obstacles to full participation. On the other, a condition in which even those who integrate remain legally precarious.

When I ask him whether Italy had been his destination, the answer is simple.

He had never thought of living here.

Then he adds that here he found kind, respectful people. That he feels grateful. Grateful for having been given a place.

It is not a plan. It is a landing.

Then I return to the beginning.

Why don't you want to go back?

He tells me that living there is very difficult. That you cannot go out at night. That after a certain hour there is a curfew. That going out means exposing yourself. Becoming a "target" for armed groups.

He tells me he was afraid to leave home to go to school.

And so even the right to education is emptied.

He studied little.

Not by choice.

But out of fear of going.

There are conversations that do not end when the interview is over. They remain within, like a deposit of questions that refuse simplistic answers. I had just finished speaking with a twenty-eight-year-old Pakistani man. Then another person approached me and, almost without noticing, we began to talk about everything that is often confused when speaking about Pakistan: terrorism, the army, students, recruitment, intelligence, escape, missing persons. At a certain point a sentence emerged that cannot be easily archived: some flee to avoid being recruited. It is a sentence that forces one to pause. Not to accept it wholesale, nor to dismiss it as exaggeration, but because it compels us to do what law should always do: distinguish.

Pakistan, in fact, is not a homogeneous body. It is a deeply multiethnic and multilingual state, in which Punjabis constitute the largest group, Pashtuns represent a significant portion of the population, and alongside them live Sindhi, Saraiki, Muhajir, Baloch, and many other minorities. This is not an ornamental detail. It is decisive.

Because when one speaks of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of merged districts, of former FATA areas, one is not merely referring to an administrative periphery, but to a space where ethnic identities, border history, militarization, armed conflict, and the crisis of effective citizenship intersect.

From here one must begin in order to avoid the first major mistake: speaking of genocide between Punjabis and Pashtuns. Such a qualification, in international law, would require proof of intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic group as such. At present, such a claim is not sustainable. But it would be equally false to assert that no structural tension exists.

The second mistake is to reduce everything to terrorism. Yes, in Pakistan there are non-state armed groups of a jihadist and terrorist nature. But it is one thing to say that terrorists exist in Pakistan; it is another to say that Pakistan itself is terrorism.

And it is equally inaccurate, in legal terms, to define the Pakistani military as terrorist. A state apparatus, even when responsible for serious violations, is not automatically classifiable as a terrorist organization. If armed forces or security agencies are accused of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, opaque use of force, or repression of dissent, the correct vocabulary is different: human rights violations, abuse of power, impunity, potentially international crimes, where the elements are met. Precision here is not pedantry. It is a guarantee.

It is within this framework that the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) emerges. The ISI is a state intelligence agency, not a terrorist group. This does not mean ignoring the complexity of its historical relationships with irregular armed actors. It means recognizing that the problem is not labeling, but understanding when and how elements of a state apparatus have cultivated strategic ambiguities with groups that generate widespread violence.

In such contexts, non-state armed groups do not operate in a vacuum. They grow where there are fractures, margins, and populations exposed to fear. In regions such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the issue is not imaginary. But one must avoid logical leaps: not every young Pashtun is at risk of recruitment, and there is no evidence of a generalized, official system of student recruitment by the state for terrorist purposes. However, there are contexts in which vulnerable individuals may be intercepted, persuaded, threatened, or coerced into violent circuits by non-state actors.

Thus, the initial statement—some flee to avoid recruitment—changes nature. It is no longer a slogan. It becomes a legally plausible possibility within a specific territorial and political context. It does not concern everyone. But when it does, it falls directly within the scope of asylum law.

This reasoning becomes even stronger when connected to the issue of missing persons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Because in that region the problem is not only the presence of armed groups, but also the disappearance of individuals within the shadow of security operations. In such an environment, fleeing is not only about abstract fear of terrorism, but also about the concrete risk of being absorbed into a system where detention, suspicion, violence, and invisibility blur into one another.

At this point, the internal Pakistani framework intersects with the international one. Military cooperation between the United States and Pakistan is not a marginal detail. It demonstrates that Pakistani security is embedded in broader networks of strategic interest.

The point, however, is not to choose between simplistic narratives—Pakistan as a victim or Pakistan as a purely violent system. The point is to recognize that multiple truths can coexist: non-state armed groups exist; state apparatuses may be responsible for violations; certain regions and communities are more exposed than others; international interests sustain security structures; and within all this, there are individuals simply trying to escape a trajectory of violence.

For this reason, when listening to the story of a young Pakistani man, or when fear of recruitment emerges in conversation, the task is not to seek a simplistic answer. The task is to reconstruct the context.

To understand where he comes from, which ethnic and territorial dynamics shape his life, whether the risk arises from non-state actors, opaque state apparatuses, or both, and whether effective internal protection truly exists.

It is a more demanding task. But it is the only serious one.

Ultimately, integrating ethnic dynamics, intelligence agencies, non-state armed groups, and international military cooperation does not mean accumulating themes. It means recognizing that flight, fear, disappearance, and asylum claims almost never arise from a single cause. They arise from an intersection of factors: identity, borders, security, armed violence, state power, geopolitics.

That is where the law must intervene—not to simplify the world, but to prevent its complexity from being used against the most vulnerable.

Related posts:

Afghanistan, Asylum Law and the Balkan Route: When Protection Becomes Intermittent

From the Balkan Route to Denied Rights: Economic Migrants, Refugees and the Failure of “Help Them at Home”

Balkan Route and Asylum Law: A Migrant’s Story from Pakistan to Italy