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IV. Legal Status of Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon

The Asylum System in Lebanon

Lebanon is not a party to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention), or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.²² Lebanon’s 1962 Law Regulating the Entry and Stay of Foreigners in Lebanon and their Exit from the Country provides that foreigners “whose life or freedom is in danger for political reasons” may request political asylum in Lebanon.²³ The 1962 law further provides that those who have been granted political asylum cannot be expelled to the territory of a state where their life or freedom would be threatened.²⁴ However, these provisions in Lebanese domestic law have never been implemented through the creation of regulations and a governmental infrastructure for examining refugee claims and granting asylum.²⁵

Instead, Lebanon treats people who enter illegally to seek asylum, or who enter legally but then overstay their visas for the same purpose, as illegal immigrants who are subject to imprisonment, fines, and deportation.²⁶ The situation improved significantly with the September 2003 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Lebanon’s General Security and UNHCR.²⁷ While the MOU declares that “Lebanon does not consider itself as an asylum country” and that “the only viable durable solution for refugees recognized under the mandate of UNHCR is resettlement in a third country,” the MOU seeks to provide “temporary humanitarian solutions for the problems of people entering clandestinely, residing unlawfully in Lebanon and submitting asylum applications at UNHCR.”²⁸

In pursuit of this “temporary humanitarian solution,” the MOU legalizes the presence of asylum seekers and refugees in Lebanon for a maximum period of one year. Under the MOU, UNHCR undertakes to complete the process of determining refugee status within three months of registering an asylum seeker.²⁹ General Security screens all asylum seekers before deciding whether to grant a “circulation permit” for those three months, allowing the holder to move freely in Lebanon.³⁰ If UNHCR recognizes an asylum seeker as a refugee, it applies to General Security to renew the circulation permit for six months. During this time, UNHCR undertakes to find a resettlement country for the refugee. If necessary, the circulation permit can be extended for a final three months.³¹

The one-year limit on circulation permits reflects Lebanon’s insistence that it is not an asylum country, and constitutes one of the MOU’s most serious drawbacks. In practice, it is only in rare cases that UNHCR is able to complete the entire process of registration, refugee status determination, and resettlement within a 12-month period. Refugees who have not been accepted for resettlement within one year after their registration with UNHCR are no longer covered by the MOU, and Lebanon considers their continued stay in the country to be illegal. Moreover, under the MOU, circulation permits can be issued only to asylum seekers who enter Lebanon illegally, and who apply to UNHCR for refugee status within two months of their arrival in the country.³² “These severe restrictions have led to the arrest and detention of many persons who fall under UNHCR’s mandate” according to UNHCR’s 2007 Country Operations Plan for Lebanon.³³

Legal Status of Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon

While non-Iraqi refugees in Lebanon benefit from the protection, however limited, afforded them by the MOU, the situation of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon is more precarious still. In April 2003, five months before Lebanon and UNHCR signed the MOU, UNHCR declared a temporary protection regime (TPR) on behalf of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, in anticipation of a refugee exodus from Iraq following the US-led invasion.³⁴ Until the end of 2006, UNHCR said that all Iraqi nationals in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon should be granted a temporary form of protection and should not be forcibly returned to Iraq. Under the TPR, UNHCR maintained that Iraqi nationals in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon should not be individually interviewed for refugee status determination, with the exception of extremely vulnerable individuals or people with special protection problems.³⁵

As a result, UNHCR conducted individual refugee status determinations for only a small proportion of all Iraqi asylum seekers in Lebanon. The rest were merely given asylum seeker certificates. While the Danish Refugee Council estimated the Iraqi refugee population in Lebanon in July 2005 to be around 20,000, by the end of 2006 UNHCR had recognized only 561 of them as refugees, while 2,356 Iraqis had asylum seeker certificates.³⁶ While UNHCR considered all those Iraqi refugees who had not been recognized under the MOU to be under the TPR, the Lebanese authorities refused to recognize the TPR, and considered Iraqi nationals not registered as refugees under the MOU to be illegal immigrants, liable to arrest and detention.³⁷

Lebanon was not the only country that refused to give effect to the TPR declared by UNHCR. Jordan, too, insisted that it never agreed to the TPR and refused to recognize it.³⁸ By January 2007, the continuously deteriorating security situation in Iraq impelled UNHCR to replace the TPR, which had largely failed to provide effective protection for Iraqi refugees in host countries in the Middle East, with a new policy. Henceforth, UNHCR decided to recognize all Iraqi nationals from central and southern Iraq as refugees on a prima facie basis.³⁹

In Lebanon, UNHCR implemented its new policy by instituting new procedures exclusively for Iraqi refugees. While it now recognizes all Iraqi nationals from central and southern Iraq as refugees on a prima facie basis, it does not, as a rule, register them under the MOU as it would with refugees from other countries. The main reason is that, with an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon at present, and with limited numbers of resettlement places, UNHCR cannot guarantee resettlement for all Iraqi refugees within 12 months of their registration, as it would be required to do if it registered these refugees under the MOU.⁴⁰ Accordingly, UNHCR does not apply to General Security for circulation permits for Iraqi refugees.

Instead, under the new policy of prima facie recognition, UNHCR issues refugee certificates to all Iraqi nationals from central and southern Iraq who approach its office.⁴¹ These certificates do not have the same status as the circulation permits that General Security issues. In particular, the Lebanese authorities do not recognize UNHCR’s refugee certificates as exempting the holders from penalties for their illegal entry or presence in the country.

By the end of August 2007, UNHCR had registered 7,766 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, and approximately another 1,600 Iraqi refugees had appointments with UNHCR for registration which would push the numbers to well over 9,000 registered refugees.⁴²

Visas and residence permits

It is very difficult for Iraqi nationals to enter Lebanon legally. Lebanon requires Iraqi nationals to have a visa to enter the country. Tourist visas can be obtained at the Lebanese embassy in Iraq, or at Beirut airport upon arrival. Iraqi nationals are not eligible to apply for a tourist visa at Lebanon’s land border crossings with Syria. To obtain a 15-day tourist visa on arrival at the international airport, Iraqis must show that they have US$2,000 in cash, a non-refundable return ticket, and a hotel reservation.⁴³ Most Iraqis who are compelled to flee Iraq cannot afford air tickets and the necessary cash guarantee.⁴⁴ As one refugee said:

I have two sisters in Baghdad. They want to leave. They say there is random violence in the roads in Baghdad, it affects everyone. But it is difficult for them to come here because they have to come by air, and you need a hotel reservation: it would cost them $1,200 per person.⁴⁵

Because Iraqi nationals cannot apply for tourist visas at Lebanon’s land border crossings with Syria, most refugees enter Lebanon illegally, with the help of smugglers who take them across the border.

Even Iraqis who enter on a visa often find themselves illegal after their initial visa expires. About 60,000 Iraqis entered Lebanon legally in 2006, and 22,000 in the first five months of 2007.⁴⁶ General Security estimates that no more than 20 percent of the Iraqis who entered the country have left.⁴⁷

In both 2006 and 2007 General Security offered to regularize the status of certain foreign nationals (including Iraqis) who entered Lebanon illegally or who entered Lebanon on a work visa and subsequently breached the conditions of their stay.⁴⁸ However, the conditions the authorities laid down were so onerous as to make this an option for only a very small number of people. First, applicants have to register with General Security and pay a fine of 950,000 Lebanese pounds (about $635) for being in the country illegally (The authorities often waive the fine for Iraqis in detention who “choose” to go back to Iraq). Then they need to obtain a work permit and a residence permit. For the work permit, they have to apply to the Ministry of Labor. To this end, they need to have a work contract with a Lebanese employer for a minimum period of six months. The work contract has to be certified by a notary public. To obtain a residence permit valid for one year, applicants have to return to General Security and present their passport,⁴⁹ their work permit, a certificate showing that their employer has deposited 1,500,000 Lebanese pounds ($1,000) with the Housing Bank, an insurance policy, and medical laboratory test results to show that they do not have HIV/AIDS. Finally, people who have regularized their status in this way must pay an annual fee for their residence permit, the value of which depends on the type of work permit: 1,800,000 Lebanese pounds ($1,200) for category one (professionals); 1,200,000 Lebanese pounds ($800) for category two (skilled labor); and 400,000 Lebanese pounds ($267) for category three (unskilled labor).⁵⁰

Due to Lebanon’s difficult economic situation and the availability of other foreign workers, few Iraqis are able to find a Lebanese employer who is willing to sponsor their application to regularize their status in Lebanon, and even fewer can satisfy all the necessary requirements and pay the fees: between March 1 and June 25, 2007, only 167 Iraqi nationals applied to regularize their status.⁵¹ As one Iraqi refugee explained:

I cannot find a sponsor to apply for residency. I asked [my employer], but they said that they can only sponsor a given number of foreigners and they had reached the limit. Employers are reluctant to sponsor Iraqis. They say, “Today you are here, but tomorrow you might be gone.” Also, if you are sponsored by someone, he has you in his stranglehold; you must work for him, for whatever he wants to pay you, and you cannot object, because he is your sponsor.⁵²

Most of those Iraqis who manage to regularize their status in Lebanon do so on the basis of a category three work permit (unskilled labor), since the fees for residence permits are much lower for those holding a category three work permit compared to work permits in categories one and two. However, a category three work permit does not entitle the holder to obtain residence permits for his or her family members, unlike holders of work permits in categories one and two.⁵³ As few refugee families can afford to pay for the regularization of more than one family member, and since adult men are at the greatest risk of being arrested and detained for illegal entry, most families opt to regularize the status of the husband or an adult son.⁵⁴ As a young Iraqi refugee woman said:

Both my older brothers have managed to obtain residence permits. Both of them work for employers who do not want to violate the law. The employers sponsored them, but my brothers paid for everything, excluding the $1,000 in the bank: this was put in the bank by their sponsors, but the sponsors kept my brothers’ passports. My father and mother stay at home, but my 15-year-old brother and I do not have residence permits and we both work. We are afraid of being arrested.⁵⁵

Another refugee woman said that her husband and four sons had all regularized their status. Asked why she and her two daughters had not applied to regularize their status, she explained: “We were afraid for the men, and now we do not have money any more.”⁵⁶

Iraqi refugees have few other options to stay in Lebanon legally. Iraqis who enter Lebanon on a valid tourist visa find that it is exceedingly difficult to maintain their legal status in the country. Tourist visas can be renewed only once, for a maximum period of three months. Foreign nationals who enter Lebanon on a tourist visa and who then overstay their visa are excluded from the possibility of regularizing their status.⁵⁷ Ironically, therefore, Iraqi refugees who abide by Lebanon’s entry requirements and enter Lebanon legally then find that there are no avenues open for them to legalize their status once their tourist visas expire, while refugees who enter illegally do have the option to regularize their status. Moreover, Iraqi refugees who enter on a tourist visa find that General Security pressures them individually to leave the country, unlike Iraqis who enter Lebanon illegally. Foreigners who enter Lebanon on a visa have to provide their address in Lebanon to General Security, and General Security officials conduct home visits to Iraqi refugees whose visas have expired.⁵⁸

Finally, while statistics relating to marriages between Iraqis and Lebanese are not available, it is not uncommon for Iraqis who have been in Lebanon for a number of years to marry Lebanese nationals. This number is likely to increase with the passage of time. Marriage provides a way out of illegality for Iraqi women married to Lebanese husbands; foreign women married to Lebanese men are entitled to free “courtesy residence permits,” on condition that that they do not work in Lebanon.⁵⁹ Moreover, foreign women married to Lebanese men are eligible to apply for Lebanese citizenship after having been married for one year (and once they have Lebanese nationality they are allowed to work).⁶⁰ Children of a Lebanese father and a foreign mother are automatically entitled to Lebanese citizenship.⁶¹

On the other hand, foreign men married to Lebanese women are not eligible to apply for Lebanese citizenship, nor are their children entitled to Lebanese citizenship.⁶² They are however entitled to three-year renewable residence permits, provided that they do not work in Lebanon and can show that they have sufficient means to support themselves for the duration of their stay in Lebanon.⁶³