Egypt is a host country to a large and diverse community of migrants and refugees. On the crossroads of Africa, Europe and Asia, Egypt has been a transit country for many migrants, as well as a country of refuge for those fleeing political instability and conflicts.&nbsp; A significant percentage of Egypt&rsquo;s refugee community has lived in Egypt for years and will do so for the foreseeable future. This is not by design, but largely a product of current reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;
In the field of refugee law, the term &ldquo;durable solutions&rdquo; refers to conditions under which displaced persons no longer have the specific protection and assistance needs linked to their displacement. The three most common durable solutions are voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement. As this piece will explain, there is a need today for countries like Egypt to consider local integration more seriously as a potential solution for the displaced populations who have fled here.&nbsp;
Egypt was part of the drafting process of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the primary international legal instrument that establishes a framework for the protection of refugees) and acceded to the Convention in 1981. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has had a presence in Egypt and has operated here since 1954, pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that is in effect to this day. Pursuant to the MOU, the Egyptian state has delegated most of its responsibilities of dealing with refugees (identification, registration and assistance) to the UNHCR. Under the MOU, the Egyptian government tasked the UNHCR with facilitating only the repatriation and resettlement of refugees. The terms &ldquo;local integration&rdquo; &ndash; the third durable solution &ndash; do not appear in the MOU (Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN, 2021).&nbsp;
What this has come to mean is that the UNHCR has been the entity charged with determining who is and isn&rsquo;t a refugee &ndash; in other words, conducting the proceedings that examine the underlying asylum claims of an applicant. This is predicated on an assumption that the refugees will then be resettled outside Egypt or will return home. Egypt has not yet implemented a domestic legal framework and the mechanisms to carry out the task of refugee determination on its own, although talk of it doing so has been ongoing. In many ways, Egypt also treats refugees like other foreigners, and its domestic laws fail to make any provisions for refugees that could, say, place them on a path to lawful permanent residence in Egypt.
Much has transpired since the signing of the MOU in 1954 &ndash; both politically and legally, to the extent that it can be said that the MOU is outdated and not reflective of modern-day reality for refugees in Egypt. Egypt is also a signatory to the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and the 2018 Global Compact on Migration, signaling that Egypt sees itself as part of the global migration regime and understands the importance of having a legal framework to address the rights and needs of migrants and refugees.&nbsp;
<h3>Lives in limbo: The global refugee crisis</h3>
Political conflicts and instability have meant a rise in the number of refugees seeking protection in Egypt (and globally). Significantly, because underlying conflicts and instability are protracted, many refugee crises are increasingly becoming protracted. Refugees are caught in a prolonged state of limbo in the countries to which they fled, but where their basic rights and needs are not met, leaving them frustrated and unfulfilled. Returning home has become a less viable option. Whereas in the 1990s, more than 10 million refugees were repatriated to their countries of origin (Crisp &amp; Long, 2016) , the number of refugees repatriating has declined since. In 2009, only 251,000 refugees went home, the lowest number returning since 1990 (UNHCR, 2010). The annual number of returnees has remained around the same since, despite an increase in the number of those forcibly displaced (UNHCR, n.d.).
At the same time, as the issue of refugees and migration has become politicized, especially in countries of the so-called &ldquo;Global North,&rdquo; the willingness to resettle refugees has generally declined. In general, only a minority of refugees benefit from resettlement. However, this small number has gotten even smaller.&nbsp; In the United States, during the administration of former president Donald J. Trump, refugee resettlement dropped to 22,491 admissions in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, down from 84,994 in FY 2016, reaching the lowest level since the US refugee resettlement program began in 1980 (Bolter &amp; Pierce, 2020). Politics and the pandemic caused the number of refugees resettled &ndash; globally &ndash; to reach a record low in 2020 (UN News, 2020).&nbsp;
In addition to reducing the &ldquo;legal&rdquo; pathways for reaching them, countries of the Global North are also placing obstacles in the path of refugees resorting to irregular means to get there.&nbsp; For example, countries of the European Union have enacted a variety of measures &ndash; sometimes referred to as border externalization policies &ndash; to curtail the arrival of refugees to their countries.&nbsp; These policies include pushbacks of boats, expulsions and third-country readmission agreements, criminalization of migration (and those seeking to assist migrants), detention of migrants, deplorable camp conditions and external processing of asylum claims.
The consequence of protracted refugee crises that reduce chances of repatriation, fewer resettlement opportunities&nbsp; and border externalization policies is that many refugees end up remaining in &ldquo;transit&rdquo; for years. In effect, the &ldquo;host country&rdquo; becomes a country of settlement. This is the situation in Egypt, where many refugees reside year after year, even decades.&nbsp;
<h3>Moving Forward: Local Integration&nbsp;</h3>
Consequently, local integration remains the only viable durable solution for many refugees. However, local integration is more than the de facto self-settlement of refugees in a country of asylum, but rather is a gradual process with legal, economic, social and cultural dimensions. Far too many countries of asylum &ndash; including Egypt &ndash; have resisted the idea of local integration.&nbsp; However, given the reality that Egypt has become a country of settlement for refugees and migrants, it may be time to enact measures consistent with this reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Egypt currently lacks a domestic legal framework that addresses the needs of refugees. Most refugees in Egypt have to undergo a lengthy and cumbersome bureaucratic process to renew their residency permits once every six months. They are restricted in their ability to travel as the Egyptian government does not issue them travel documents or re-entry permits that would ensure they can return to Egypt. Many refugees are unable to complete secondary education due to the costs, as refugees are expected to pay higher fees, like other foreign students. They are subject to the same sponsorship rules for employment as other foreigners, effectively meaning that most employers refuse to hire them.&nbsp;
Unfortunately, due to many misconceptions circulated in popular media and the politicization of migration, many governments have come to fear refugees as a public burden and drain on resources.&nbsp; In fact, in many countries, refugees and migrants have revitalized certain neighborhoods, started their own businesses, and even become employers. Numerous studies have examined the positive impact that migrants have on the economy (Mohieldin &amp; Ratha, 2019). A 2017 report by the United Nations Development Program found that Syrian refugees residing in Egypt invested nearly USD800 million in the country since the beginning of the crisis, a figure that could even increase if there were a more conducive environment (Noureldin, 2017).
For many years, it has been reported that the government is planning to draft legislation on refugees and migration, with a view towards having the Egyptian state take over the tasks and responsibilities it delegated to the UNHCR (Rollins, 2015; Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN, 2021). This would be an opportune moment to ensure that the legislation drafted provides a comprehensive legal framework to address the needs of refugees, including their residency rights, right to education, right to access healthcare, work and travel. Many have argued and will argue that it is beyond Egypt&rsquo;s capacity to make such provisions. However, the long-term benefits of allowing refugees to fulfill their potential and become more productive outweigh those concerns. Egypt does not have to confer automatic rights and benefits on all refugees and migrants. However, the legislation could establish criteria that would set beneficiaries who choose to participate on a path towards increased rights and eventual permanent residence.&nbsp;
In this regard, it may be worthwhile to look at the example of Morocco, a country that established such a schema in 2014 and through which tens of thousands of refugees and migrants have regularized their status. This 2014 campaign &ndash; renewed in 2016 with more flexible criteria (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR] &amp; DLA Piper, 2018) &ndash; allowed over 25,000 people to receive a one-year renewable residence permit (Schuettler, 2017).There are many advantages to regularization &ndash; most importantly, regularization removes the cloud of precarity that hangs over the lives of many migrants, restores a measure of dignity and enables them to take steps to move forward with their lives.&nbsp; It reduces the incidence of exploitation and abuse of migrants by landlords or employers.&nbsp; It also confers benefits on host countries, since with a more secure legal status, migrants are more likely to seek ways of improving their conditions: whether through furthering education, seeking more regular labor or starting businesses.&nbsp; These are just some reasons why many countries periodically offer regularization schemes for migrants (Levinson, 2005).&nbsp;&nbsp;
This proposal is not meant to absolve countries of the Global North &ndash; who have greater resources and greater capacity to absorb larger numbers of migrants and refugees &ndash; from their shared responsibility.&nbsp; After all, a central idea expressed in the Global Compact for Migration was that the issue cannot be addressed by one country alone and in isolation. However, countries in the Global South cannot ignore or neglect the rights and dignity of migrants and refugees, in the expectation that these populations simply pass through and disappear. A legal framework that addresses the needs of these populations and provides some of those rights could ultimately benefit both host countries and the migrant and refugee populations.&nbsp;
<hr>
References
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Bolter, J., &amp; Pierce, S. (2020). Dismantling and reconstructing the US immigration system: A catalogue of changes under the Trump presidency. Migration Policy Institute.&nbsp;
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Crisp, J., &amp; Long, K. (2016). Safe and voluntary refugee repatriation: From principle to practice, Journal on Migration and Human Security, 4(3), 141-147.
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Levinson, A. (2005). Why countries continue to consider regularization. Migration Policy Institute.&nbsp;
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Mohieldin, M., &amp; Ratha, D. (2019, March 1). Migration can support economic development if we let it. Here's how. World Economic Forum. <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/migration-myths-vs-economic-facts">https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/migration-myths-vs-economic-facts</a>
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