Mohammed, a 41-year-old undocumented Afghan migrant, has for months been confined to the private garden near Tehran where he works as a caretaker, too afraid of detention and deportation by Iran’s police to even go out for a haircut.

“My wife does all the shopping. My two sons are anxious when going to school,” said the father of four, who did not want to give his full name.

“I can’t live in Afghanistan under the Taliban,” said Mohammed, who does not have a bank account and lives in a building on the garden grounds. “My life will be at risk. Not to mention there will be no job, no prospects and family to take care of.”

Mohammed is one of what Iranian authorities say was more than 2mn Afghans who crossed the border into the country after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 — adding to the many more who had entered in recent decades.

Tehran now says it plans to send them back. With the country grinding through a severe economic crisis and its leaders grappling with an increasingly bitter public, the Islamic republic’s leaders have vowed to accelerate mass deportations.